


Ruined

by JRC10



Series: The Unforgiven [2]
Category: General Hospital, One Life to Live
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-07-31 09:57:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 60,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20113237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRC10/pseuds/JRC10
Summary: A sequel to The Unforgiven.This summary contains spoilers for the Unforgiven, so I'd recommend reading that before continuing...Lorenzo Alcazar has followed Alexis Davis back to Port Charles and is determined to win her back.  However, believing she won't give him a chance, he pretends to be his brother, Tomas Delgado.  Is there a chance for Lorenzo to win her back, or have their actions in The Unforgiven and beyond left them completely Ruined?





	1. Being Tomas

Lorenzo

____________________________

This god awful tattoo on my arm identifies me as Tomas Delgado, and is my camouflage in Port Charles. I fucking hate it. I can’t wait for the day I can fix it. Put something there that screams my real identity.

I just have to be patient. I don’t want to scare Alexis away.

In order to keep her from thinking I’m following her, I had to spend weeks following her. I had to learn her patterns...breakfast at Kelly’s or Charlie’s, and lunch and dinner at either the Floating Rib or the Metro Court (the woman truly never cooked). All her time in between was spent with Molly, Scout, and clients at either the courthouse, her office, or her home. 

She spent a significant amount of time alone...time that should be spent with me.

My plan has been to show up to these places she’s most likely to frequent and have her ‘spontaneously’ run into me. So, it’s Saturday night, and I’m at the Metro Court waiting, hoping, and anticipating that the woman I love might show up, yet she may very well decide to have ribs for dinner and go somewhere else.

There are times when I think about how pathetic this is...lurking around for glimpses of her, for scraps of time. Then I remember what it felt like to have her naked in my arms, to have her whisper how much she loves me as we’re falling asleep, to hear her say she chooses me.

I choose her, too.

If it weren’t for that bastard, Jerome, everything would be perfect right now. He stole my Lila Rae from her mother, he sent those pictures of me in Jersey to Alexis. He ruined everything. I couldn’t let him live. Everything I worked for in that past decade would’ve collapsed if I let him live.

And I couldn’t let Tomas live after he tried to kill me, too. He served his purpose dying for me.

The elevator pings open, and my eyes flash up in hopes of seeing her. The frustrated grunt I let off when Jasper Jax gets out of the elevator is completely involuntary. I have to remind myself to keep an impassive face as Jax sees me and takes in my appearance. ‘Tomas Delgado’ shouldn’t recognize the man, after all. 

Impassivity is a trait my twin brother taught me in our youth. Luis was actually more emotionally expressive than I am. He used to antagonize me in all manner of ways until he’d get a reaction. Once he got a reaction, he’d zero in the weakness at exploit it to no end. I learned early on not to react. 

This impassivity is a blessing and a curse in my current situation. The blessing is that Jax looks at me for a long moment...assessing...then moving on. His suspicions allayed by his knowledge of the existence of ‘Tomas’ and my confirming lack of reaction to him. However, the curse is that Tomas, like our brother Luis, was also more expressive than me. And though I’ve always been good at containing myself, I’m not very practiced in manufacturing false emotional reactions. 

Being Tomas has a number of additional challenges, too, including putting on a little extra weight. He was naturally a little denser than I am. I regulated his diet to trim him down to my size while I held him prisoner so he could pass as me. Now, I’m having to pack on extra protein to meet his muscle mass, otherwise his adopted family might grow suspicious. It’s a pain in the ass.

Lila Rae says I should also take art classes and throw around a vague sketch here and there to sell the role, but I just don’t fucking want to. I’m far too consumed in other pursuits right now. And I DON’T fucking WANT to be Tomas. I want to be me. I just need to get Alexis to fall for me again. She won’t give me a chance as Lorenzo, but she will give my ‘brother’ one.

The elevator opens again. This time, my racing heart is rewarded with the most beautiful face in the world. I don’t have to hide this reaction. I want her to know what she does to me. I want her to look at me and see how she lights me on fire. 

Before she has a chance to meet my eyes, Jax calls out, “Alexis!” and she doesn’t even catch a glimpse of me. 

Her answering smile to her best friend is sweet and genuine. It’s not one I’ve ever seen before. It’s not the smile of my sated lover, nor is it the smile of her joy at seeing Scout again. It’s a soft, easy smile. 

I like it. I wish she’d give it to me.

I watch her step into Jax and embrace her old friend. They kiss each other on the mouth, which I find strange. I know it’s not the passionate way she kisses a lover, but it’s far more intimate than that of a friend. I keep my jealousy in check, knowing if she wanted to fuck Jax, she would’ve put her hips into that kiss, the way she always did with me.

I love that woman. MY woman. I’m hungry for her.

Her meal with Jax looks to be both business and pleasure. She hands him some documents, they chat and laugh, he signs them and gives them back before laughing some more.

How have I never seen her with such a relaxed and easygoing demeanor before? Ok, I get why she didn’t show it for most of her stay in Mexico...being captive and away from her granddaughter probably didn’t call for much relaxation. But even during our two weeks of bliss before Julian fucking Jerome took Lila, I never saw that side of her.

Maybe because there was just so much fucking? Maybe I’m a little intense?

No...she smiles at me different, even when she’s happy. I wonder why that is?

I want all her smiles.

I want all of her.

I notice she orders a salad, but she picks steak and potatoes off Jax’s plate. That’s another difference between me and the Aussie; she wouldn’t have to pick off my plate, because I’d be feeding her. I can tell Jax doesn’t think of her as a lover either. He doesn’t watch her bring her food to her lips. He’s not mesmerized by the way her mouth moves when she talks. When he grabs her hand, it’s with affection, but not desire.

That’s the bastard’s saving grace.

I notice Jax point a finger over at me, and I don’t pretend I wasn’t staring. A set of dark, brown eyes grow wide and flash in my direction. Her pleasant smile falters before she replaces it with another...a sad smile. ‘Tomas’ doesn’t remind her of happy days...at least not yet.

She puts a hand on Jax’s arm and excuses herself before coming over to my table. I don’t try to hide my eyes dropping to her hips to watch their sway as she walks closer. 

I stand at her arrival, and she opens her arms to embrace me. My hands are forced find safe and appropriate places to land on her body. One finds the small of her back, and the other cradles the back of her head...ok, so maybe it’s a little more intimate than the level our ‘friendship’ entails.

I place a chaste kiss on her temple and take a deep breath, inhaling her perfect scent. Her head is leaning on my chest, and I can and feel her lungs taking me in the same way. Halfway through her inhale, she tenses in my arms - she smells me, too. The real me.

She pulls back and looks at my arm...the fucking tattoo. Her shoulders relax a moment as she’s reassured, before she looks up and says. “Hi, Tomas.”

“Hi, Alexis. Join me.” 

I notice her reluctance as she looks toward her table with Jax. He’s watching us, but his phone starts ringing, and he’s distracted. 

“Please,” I plead.

She smiles a reluctant smile, and says, “For a moment.”

She sits to the right of me instead of across the table, and she’s on the edge of her seat as though ready to run away. Strange...I don’t know this Alexis...the avoidant one. I know the District Attorney Alexis, the demanding her granddaughter back Alexis, the lover, the fighter. I’ve never met the anxious avoider.

“How are you?” I ask.

She squirms a little in her chair before she responds. “I’m fine. Just taking things day by day. How about you?”

“I’m well.”

“And Lila Rae?”

“She’s well. She told me she saw you at the Quartermaine house the other day.”

“I’m representing ELQ on a matter. You know, she’s really a sweet girl.” 

“So I’ve learned.” I can’t help the paternal pride in my expression.

“How is she handling Lo…” she halts at my name. “How is she handling...his death?”

I grasp her hand, making sure I use my tattooed arm since it seems to give her comfort. “She fine, Alexis. She didn’t know the man.”

“She still saw her father murder someone. And she watched him get shot.”

“I know, but she’s resilient. She’s not the one who has me worried.”

“Oh?”

I squeeze her hand and give her a look to let her know she’s the one who has me concerned.

“I’m ok,” she says.

“You lost two people that day, Alexis. Julian AND Lorenzo.”

“I didn’t just lose them. Julian was murdered, and I killed Lorenzo. I did that.”

That’s a punch to the gut. How did I not know that? “What?”

“I shot him after Julian’s man wounded him...three times...in the head.”

I sit back in my chair, trying hard to close my mouth. That one hurts. She wanted me dead THAT bad. “What…” I lose my voice. I cough to gain it back, “What happened?”

“Lorenzo shot and killed Julian. One of Julian’s men shot Lorenzo. I guess Lorenzo’s guards were instructed to only worry about Lila, because they all left taking her away. I found a gun and shot him.”

“Why?”

“For everything. He killed two of my daughters. He kidnapped my granddaughter. He lied to me, made me fall for him, knowing I’d never love the man who hurt my girls. Then he killed the man I love.”

Fuck, another hit to the pride. This one a left hook. What the hell? “I thought you were in love with Lorenzo?”

“I loved them both, Tomas. Don’t ask me how that’s possible. I told Lorenzo I didn’t love Julian so he’d help me get Scout and he’d leave Julian alone.” She still looks so angry when she thinks about me.

“Can I ask you a hypothetical question?”

“Of course.”

“If you never found out Lorenzo was the one responsible for taking Scout...who would you have chosen?”

Alexis drops her head. She sits still as she considers the question. Finally, she pulls her hand from mine and grabs my napkin off my lap to wipe the corners of her eyes. “That’s not a hypothetical question. I chose Lorenzo. I chose the man who killed half the people I love.”

Relief drains the tension from my shoulders that had apparently built in anticipation of her response. I force myself not to smile, or laugh, or celebrate like I want. Her loving Julian, but choosing me, makes winning her love all the sweeter. What we had was real, and more than what she had for that bastard that tried to kill her.

A tear falls down her cheek, and I realize…“You killed the man you loved more than anyone.”

She sniffed.

“And I have his face. No wonder you’ve been avoiding me.”

She looks up. “I haven’t been avoiding you.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. 

“Fine. Maybe I have. Do you blame me?”

“Of course not. I figured you needed time, I just didn’t realize you killed the man.”

“I murdered both your brothers, Tomas. You have every reason to hate me. Lorenzo certainly did...for a time.”

“I don’t hate you. My brothers got what they deserved. If you didn’t take them out, at some point, I would have.”

Alexis cringed. I don’t think she likes the idea of Tomas hurting Lorenzo. 

“You still love him,” I say.

She looks into my eyes, and I know she sees me...the real me. She doesn’t want to, but she does.

“You look so much like him, Tomas. I thought I could handle being around you, but when I see you...my feelings for him just come flooding back.”

“Your murderous feelings?”

She shakes her head, “No...the other ones. And, look, you’ve said you want more than friendship with me...I just don’t want to confuse my feelings for him with my feelings for you. It’s not fair to you.”

I can’t help my grin. “Maybe I don’t care who your feelings are for...maybe I’ll settle for being near you.”

“You deserve more than to settle.”

“Oh, I intend to do more than settle...eventually. I have no doubt we’ll be more than you were with any other man before. You just need time.”

Alexis flushes bright red. “See...when you say things like that...that’s just like him. The insistence... It makes me feel what I felt for him…”

“Maybe you’ll get used to my personal brand of insistence.”

“Tomas…”

“Look, Alexis. You and Nikolas were my only friends six years. I finally get out of there, and everything is different from before. My relationships with my family, my job, my friends, the city I live in...everything. Everything is strange and unfamiliar...except you.”

Her dark eyes are shining as they look into mine. “Oh, Tomas.” She grabs my hand. “I’m so sorry. I guess I just thought that once you got your freedom, you’d be happy. How naive of me.”

She rubs the black ink on my arm. “For some reason, when we were in Mexico, I could differentiate between you and Lorenzo so much better, which is bizarre, because I can see the physical differences between the two of you much better now that you’re not in a cage.” Her hand travels up my larger biceps and across my more heavily, sculpted chest. Her touch stimulates deep in my spine, and radiates throughout by body. “But you have the SAME eyes. The SAME voice. You smell the same, for christ’s sake.” 

She shakes her head and keeps going, “Maybe it’s the guilt over what I did to him, I don’t know, but I can’t get him out of my head when you’re near me.”

I caress her cheek, “Alexis, can you get him out of your head when I’m not near you?”

She laughs, “I guess not.”

“So maybe spending a little more time with me might help you get over him.”

She shakes her head, but at least she’s smiling. “I wish it worked that way. It’s all the more acute when you’re around. It’s REAL when you’re here, not a memory.”

I can’t help the ache of yearning that comes from my chest. I just want to fucking grab her, throw her over my shoulder, and find a place to lay my claim. “If he walked through those doors right now, what would you do?”

Her smile fades and her eyes get cold, “I’d sink your steak knife in his chest.”

Damn, I love her ferocity! “So, no regrets then?”

She shakes her head. “Falling for him got my little girl back. Killing him got my vengeance.”

“A soul for a soul?”

Her eyes widen as though she never thought about it that way. “I guess so.”

“Was it worth it?”

“No, but it was necessary.” She takes a long, shuddering breath. “I should get going.”

“I’m guessing I won’t be seeing you again anytime soon?”

She doesn’t answer...I’m sure she’s struggling with the question herself. She just stands up and takes a step closer to me. She bends down, kisses me on the cheek, and whispers, “Goodbye, Tomas.” She inhales me one more time before she walks away.

Fuck! That can’t be it. That can’t be how I leave things with her. 

She says a quick goodbye to Jax and goes to the elevator. I reach in my pocket and grab my wallet. Thank God I have cash. I throw money down and follow after her. I need to stride quickly to make it through the elevator doors before they close in front of me. I slide in just before they shut.

I hear an intake of breath to my left. Alexis looks surprised to see me. “What are you doing here?”

As I straighten my posture and stand as tall and broad as my body allows, I’m kicking myself for doing so. Tomas wasn’t a man to stand this way. This was a product of my father’s tutelage. But I just can’t help myself. She brings out every dominant instinct hardwired into my body. I tower over Alexis as I step forward into her space, and I can feel her body react. She’s vibrating...humming with excitement. She backs against the wall, looking up at me with wide, dark eyes. 

“Alexis…” I lean over her, my hand on the wall near her head. “I’m not giving up on us, you know.”

She tries to look away, but I’m everywhere around her. She gives up and meets my gaze. “Tomas…” she falters.

I caress her cheek as I speak, “You love my eyes...my voice...my face. I don’t care how you fell in love with them, you love them. And all the things you hated about Lorenzo are gone. The murders, the kidnappings, the lies, the betrayals. All that’s left is the stuff you wanted. I’m not letting what happened in the past ruin the future.”

She pulls my hand off her face as says with a pained look in her eyes. “I loved more of Lorenzo than just the packaging, Tomas.”

“I know…”

“That’s not something you can just replace.”

“Try me.”

She shakes her head, “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you better than you think. And I want to know more.” I drop my lips to her forehead and kiss her there like I did at the restaurant, but this time it’s anything but chaste. The way I move my hands to grasp handfuls of her hair, the way I press my body against her, there’s no mistaking my desire for the woman. Her scent surrounds me in all it’s seductive femininity. I can’t stop my tongue from splitting my lips and giving the gentlest lick, barely grazing her skin. Though it hardly touched her, her flavor explodes in my mouth, and I groan in want of more. “I’m going to know more, Alexis. And you’re going to want me to.”

The elevator doors open, and I force myself to step back. I smile as I realize she’s grasping my shirt. She seems surprised, too, and forces herself to let go. The door starts closing, and I hold it open with a hand. 

Alexis stands still for a moment. Her eyes start blinking rapidly and she smooths her clothes as though we’ve been fucking each other senseless all the way down. She visibly shakes her head as though clearing away a buzzing intoxication from our interaction.

The way I’m standing to hold the elevator open, she has to pass close to me and under my arm to get out. She takes a few tentative steps, whimpers softly, and seems to think it best to look away from me as she walks through. When she’s under my arm, I grab her by the elbow, forcing her to look up at me, and rumble, “I’ll see you soon.”

Her dark eyes are hooded with arousal, and she licks her lips. She huffs a breath before pulling away and walking to the front door.

I step out of the elevator and stand there watching her walk away. I can’t help the self-satisfied smirk on my face that I’m sure Tomas would never have dared to sport. She loves me. She wants me. I’m going to win her back in spite of her wishes otherwise.


	2. Internal Struggle

Alexis

____________________________

I need a hot bath. A painfully hot bath...with way too many bubbles...and candlelight...just one candle though; I don’t want too much perfume...and music? No. No music. Music always reminds me of something...or someone. I don’t want to think. I just want to feel. 

I need chocolate.

I take the last few steps up to the front door of the Quartermaine House. Just one more stop, and I get to go home to my bath. I ring the bell and wait…

It opens to my two favorite faces in the world. My heart swells and fills with more joy and love than I can bear, a rare feeling these days. It’s bittersweet, though, knowing they are the last two people in this world I can truly call family. 

“Well, hello you two!” I drop my briefcase on the floor and open my arms to embrace my daughter and granddaughter. Molly is holding Scout on her hip, and I steal my little girl away and rain kisses on her cheeks. I turn to Molly and touch her sweet face as I ask, “What brings you here?”

“I took Scout to the park this afternoon, and I’m dropping her off with Monica until Drew gets off work. I stayed because Ned said you’d be stopping by soon.”

“This is a nice surprise.”

“Mr. Enzo’s here, Gramma!” says Scout pulling my face to look at her.

My heart races a million miles per hour. “Lorenzo here?”

“Tomas Delgado is here,” Molly corrects. “Scout keeps calling him ‘Mr. Enzo.’ We tried telling her, but she won’t listen. Tomas doesn’t seem to mind.”

My heart doesn’t slow at the knowledge of Tomas’s presence after yesterday’s elevator ride. “Why is Tomas here?”

“Oh, he’s taken over managing ELQ shares for Lila Rae. He’s talking business with Monica and Ned while I chat with Lila. She’s starting PCU in the Spring, and I told her I’d show her around, introduce her to friendly faces.”

Molly grabs my briefcase so I don’t have to give up my little girl quite yet. I’m grateful to be prepared, to some degree, for Tomas’s presence as I walk into the main sitting room. 

He caught me completely off guard yesterday at the Metro Court. It was just so unlike him to be so...domineering. He FELT like Lorenzo. I wanted him like I always wanted Lorenzo.

Our eyes lock immediately when I walk in the room. His crystal blues are watching me with an amused intensity. I purposely stop by to greet Monica first who is chatting with Lila Rae, giving me a few extra moments to compose myself. Unfortunately, Lila’s staring at me with a similar amusement as her uncle. And it just so happens, they share the same eyes. 

“Hello, Lila,” I say as I hand Scout over to Monica who is tantalizing her with a caramel candy from a dish on the side table. Lila’s presence has thrown me off as much as Tomas. The last time I saw Lila was Julian and Lorenzo...No, I can’t think of that right now. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m good. Though not as good as my uncle. He’s been quite chipper since he got home last night,” she’s smirking slyly.

Dear God. If the poor girl only knew what I did to her father…I’m actually surprised Tomas didn’t tell her.

I smile politely and say, “That’s nice to hear.”

I take a deep breath and buck up to go see Ned and Tomas. I take my briefcase from Molly and hold it as a shield between me and the blue-eyed temptation, who happens to also be a reminder of the greatest pain in my life.

“Hello, Alexis.” Ned leans in and gives me a kiss on the cheek like he’s done a million times before. 

“Hello, Alexis.” For some reason those same words sound very different coming from Tomas’s mouth. I wonder if it’s just my ears taking in all that innuendo in his voice. He leans in, just as Ned did, and places a kiss on my cheek. His kiss is far less platonic than the one given to me by my ex-fiance. Tomas’s mouth is open ever so slightly, and nips on my skin as he kisses me hello. I’m certain I hear a little rumbling groan in my ear as he exhales.

“Hello, gentlemen. Ned, I have those contracts we discussed.” I dig into my bag to avoid Tomas’s gaze and hand the paperwork to Ned.

“Perfect. I’ll sign them, then get them to Michael this evening.”

“I can stop by tomorrow afternoon and pick them up at the office.” 

Some kind of magnetic pull or compulsion has me looking up at Tomas. He’s watching me so astutely, and his body is tight and tense. He’s lost his easy smile and gentle demeanor from Mexico...in fact, he FEELS more like Lorenzo than Tomas. 

But I know he isn’t Lorenzo. I know I killed the man. Just looking at Tomas tells me he’s not Lorenzo. His build is noticeably thicker, more heavily muscled. The lines on his face aren’t so severe. And, of course, there’s his tattoo. I’m probably just missing Lorenzo and looking for him in every movement Tomas makes. 

And frankly, it’s been six months since I killed Lorenzo. Also a lawyer who has questioned thousands of witnesses in my career, I know better than most how faulty memory can be. People take in new information and integrate it in with old, and it’s impossible to tell what’s old memory, and what’s new.

I need to stop thinking of Lorenzo every time I see him. I need to just think of Tomas. Much like I did back in Mexico.

“How are you liking the world of business, Tomas? A far cry from espionage and art.”

He smiles softly. “It’s different, but I’m getting used to it. It helps that I’ve lost my taste for spy games.”

“And your painting? Your music?”

Tomas looks down, “I’ve not had much interest, I’m afraid. I haven’t touched a piano or a paint brush in seven years. I don’t I even remember how to wield them. Thankfully, there’s a lot to learn in helping Lila with her father’s estate. It’s keeping me preoccupied and helping me feel useful. She has no interest in business, so I think it’s benefiting us both.”

“He’s got a sharp mind,” says Ned, patting Tomas on the back. “He’s picking things up quickly.”

“Oh, that I know,” I say. “Tomas guided me through a challenging time in Mexico. He has broad perspective and a head for strategy.” 

This conversation isn’t helping me NOT think about Lorenzo.

Tomas is looking at me pensive and curious. I bet he can tell where my thoughts have gone. I don’t remember him being as studious as his brother, but of course he must’ve been as a CIA agent. 

I’m starting to get overwhelmed with his scrutiny, and though Molly and Scout are here, I need to get out. Tomas is making me nervous...nervous in the way Jerry and Julian used to make me nervous. If those flashing lights and sirens don’t tell me to run in the opposite direction, nothing will.

“I’ve gotta run,” I say, doing my best to keep cool. I don’t want to do what I normally do when I feel like this...flush and stammer and ramble...I just need to go. I keep my eyes on Ned as I say, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Ned. Goodbye, Tomas.”

I turn and find Molly and Scout and give my goodbyes. Molly gives me a raised eyebrow as though she can see I’m flustered. Thankfully, she’s astute enough not to make a big deal about it right now, and probably knows it has something to do with the man who looks like the person who held me ‘captive’ last summer.

As I’m making my getaway in the cold January air, I hear my name as I arrive at my car.

“Alexis!”

I turn to find Tomas stepping down the stairs to the driveway. He’s not dressed for the cold, so I’m hoping this won’t last long. Unfortunately, he hardly seems affected by the freezing temperature, and only his frozen breath gives any hint at vulnerability. 

I watch him stride forward with a swagger that makes my knees weak, and I have to lean against my car to make sure I stay upright. How did I not notice the way he walks before? Why is it such a turn on now?

Damn it. I shouldn’t be feeling like this for man so close to Julian’s death...to Lorenzo’s death.

Tomas doesn’t stop until he’s in my space. He languidly leans over me against my car. He smirks when he says, “You’re running from me.”

I shrug. He’s not wrong.

His smirk gets a little brighter. “I’m in your blood.”

“I told you, Tomas, I’m not sure if it’s you or Lorenzo that’s got me worked up like this.”

His smile doesn’t falter. “I’m fine with that.”

This makes no sense to me. “Do you not hear me? I’m telling you I’m not certain if I’m attracted to YOU or to the man I watched murder your son! That doesn’t bother you?”

His smile fades and he looks away. I watch his lips pucker as he chews on his cheek. I don’t even realize I’m moving until I see my hand reach up to touch his face. “Your brother used to do that…”

His eyes return to mine. “What?”

“Chew on his cheek like that. He did it when he was agitated...or when he was thinking.”

He releases his cheek and his pensive pucker is gone, “I’m sure a lot of people do that. My face just reminds you of what HE looked like when he did it.”

“Exactly, Tomas. Everything about you is a comparison to HIM. Why would you want anything to do with that?”

He leans forward and slowly strokes my hair. “Because you’re worth it. One day, you’ll get past sorting through what is Tomas and what is Lorenzo, the same way you got over Luis.”

“I never loved Luis. I hated everything about him.”

“Except his face.”

“I hated his face until I fell in love with it.”

“Then you can see Lorenzo until you fall in love with me.”

“That can’t happen, Tomas. I just don’t see how that’s good for either one of us.”

Tomas grumbles in frustration, “I can understand why Lorenzo wanted to lock you away and keep you to himself. I’m tempted to do the same.”

The thought amuses me. “The captive becomes the captor?”

“Maybe my years of imprisonment have given me new kink.”

“No...that’s not you, Tomas. That’s Luis. That’s Lorenzo.”

“I just want you to give us a chance. I can see you feel something when you look at me. You think it’s your feelings for Lorenzo, but you didn’t have these feelings for me in Mexico. The reaction we’re having to each other is between you and me here and now. No one else. I just wish you’d give us a chance to sort it all out.”

“And what if I find that I’m not attracted to the good guy? What if I’m just twisted that way?”

His hand moves to hold my jaw firm, his eyes bore into mine, and he speaks with a dark, rumbling voice, “Then I’ll be as bad as you need me to be.”

I can feel my sex clench and moisten at his words. His body is pressing into mine...no wait, that’s me leaning into him. My eyes are on his lips, much easier to see without the scruff of Lorenzo’s beard. They’re beautifully tempting...I wonder if his kiss feels as good as his brother...

Oh no! I pull back. “I need to go.”

“Come out with me, Alexis. Let me take you out on a real date. I can’t imagine you’ve been on one for a long time.”

He has no idea how right he is. And I want to. I can easily imagine getting caught up in his arms...Lorenzo’s arms. “I can’t.” I push him away. 

He takes a step back and gives me room to breathe. He puts his hands in his pockets and a shiver runs through his body, the first indication the cold is getting to him. “I’ll give you as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You shouldn’t hold out for me.”

“I’d be insane not to.”

I shake my head, not understanding these Alcazar brothers and their bizarre female obsessions. I get in my car and turn it on to warm up. Funny thing, I don’t need the additional heat as I watch Tomas gaze at me through the windshield. 

__________________________________

I don’t have to knock coming into Wyndemere anymore, which pleases me more than I anticipated it would. I didn’t think I missed the place so much. I was, however, painfully aware of how badly I missed Nikolas. 

As I adjust to the warmth of being indoors and stomp the ice off my boots, I think on my gratitude that now I have Nikolas back in my life, and there’s the added bonus of Helena being dead. The joy that gives me is enough to keep me going on my particularly dark days. The only thing I have to worry about now when it comes to my nephew is…

“...Valentin,” I hear Nikolas’s voice coming from the sitting room.

“I’m sorry, Nik, but there’s nothing I can do.” The other voice that drifts through the double doors hits me hard.

“Lorenzo?” I whisper. My heart beats furiously as I take a few steps toward the door.

“The only thing I’m doing with my brother’s business is divesting it for my niece. She trusts me to handle it for her. I can’t use his resources in the way you’re asking if I’m to get her safely out of the cartel.”

“Tomas,” I say aloud, stepping into the sitting room.

Nikolas and Tomas rise up together to greet me.

“Hello, Aunt.” My nephew gives me a hug and kisses my cheek.

“Hello again, Alexis,” says Tomas. “This is the third day in a row I have the good fortune to run into you.” 

I still have the panic and anticipation that rose in my chest when I thought I heard Lorenzo speak upon entering. It doesn’t help to see and smell HIM when Tomas hugs me hello. 

“Are you ok?” he says. He must notice me out of sorts. 

“I’m fine.” I’m obviously not fine.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he says apologetically. He doesn’t want me to think he’s stalking me or something.

“I didn’t know I’d be here either. I came to discuss Valentin’s appeal with Nikolas if he has time. It sounds like the two of you were discussing my brother, as well.”

Tomas hangs his head like he doesn’t want to admit to their conversation. Nikolas sighs and remains otherwise quiet. 

“Nikolas, you’re not engaging in any criminal activity to keep your estate, are you?”

“No...not yet.”

“Nikolas!”

“Don’t worry, Alexis. Tomas is refusing to help me, and I’m out of options at this point. I’ve lost all my clout and connections to Valentin while I was incarcerated.”

“While you were kidnapped,” I correct.

“You understand why I can’t help you?” Tomas says to Nikolas.

“I get it. I do. And the last thing you need is to make Téa and Dani targets, too.”

I forgot just how close these men became when they were imprisoned together. I’ve always felt Tomas was MY friend, but he’s actually much closer to Nikolas than me. 

I turn to my nephew. “Why would you want to antagonize Valentin? I told you I can help you keep your legal claim to the estate.”

“Don’t worry about it, Alexis. This doesn’t concern you.”

“Doesn’t concern me? I’m your aunt and your lawyer.”

Tomas puts a hand on my arm, “It’s really is best for you stay out of it. Plausible deniability if Nikolas decides to respond.”

“Respond? Oh, I see. Valentin’s attacking you, isn’t he? He’s causing more than just legal trouble. You want Tomas to use Lorenzo’s cartel to cause trouble for Valentin in return?”

“I’m just exploring my options, and clearly Tomas isn’t one of them,” Nikolas says.

I grab Nikolas by the arms and try to convey the level of anxiety his mindset is giving me. “This family doesn’t need more violence, Nikolas. Aren’t you done with that? Think of Spencer.”

“I am thinking of Spencer. If I don’t have the estate, I can’t protect him.”

I grumble, “You sound like Lorenzo. That’s just an excuse to continue with your obsession with building power and money. We don’t have to follow in the footsteps of our family. Look at me; I got out.”

Nikolas smiles sadly as he says, “No, Aunt, you’re only trying to convince yourself you’re out. It’s only been six months since you’ve been home. People like us...we’ll never be free of this kind of life.”

I feel tears build in my eyes. I take a deep breath hoping to stop them from falling. When I know my voice won’t break, I answer, “It won’t be for a lack of trying on my part. I want better for Molly and Scout.”

I can see my words are having no impact on my nephew. Nikolas sighs, and I smell a familiar scent on his breath. I look to the coffee table and see a couple empty glasses with traces of amber liquid at the bottom. He’s stressed and scared and reverting to old coping mechanisms and defenses.

Why do I feel like I’m talking to Stefan? I need to take a step back before I get caught up. “Why don’t I just call you tomorrow to fill you in on Valentin’s appeal? There’s really not much to it.” 

Nikolas nods and kisses my cheek. I can tell he’s uncomfortable with the high road I’m encouraging him to take.

“Goodbye, Tomas,” I say.

“Actually, I’m going to hitch a ride on the launch with you. I need to get back in time for dinner with Lila.”

Oh, great. This isn’t going to decrease my impulse to drink...or worse.

“How cold is it out there?” he asks.

“The wind was picking up as I came in.”

Tomas grabs his coat off the back of a chair and gestures me ahead of him out the door. The cold hits us with a gust of air as we step outside. We pull our coats tight, put our heads down and walk toward the launch. It’s begun snowing, and the wind is swirling it around as we make our way to the dock.

He puts an arm around my waist and pulls me in close to his side. It’s warm and secure, so when I realize it’s probably too intimate a gesture for the state of our relationship, I still don’t put up a fight. I’m wearing high-heeled boots, and I’d rather not slip on the ice that’s formed from the spray of the water. 

That, and I like being close to him.

The launch is waiting where I left it, and I’m not looking forward to going over the water while it’s snowing. I’m all the more pleased Tomas is here. He steps on the boat first, and takes my hand to guide me on. As soon as both feet are down, his arm is around my waist again.

The launch has a partially covered area, and he sits us in the center. It’s still freezing, and it only gets colder as the boat starts moving. My winter coat should probably be traded in for a parka, because it feels like it’s doing nothing to shield me from the cold.

“Jesus,” says Tomas. “Come here.” He stands and pulls me up with him. He opens his coat inviting me to put my arms around his waist for additional warmth. I hesitate…“Come on, Alexis, it’s freezing.”

To hell with my reservations and worries. I step in and hug Tomas as he wraps his coat around us. My hands feel a painful, prickling relief as they absorb the warmth of his body separated only by a thin layer of the fabric of his shirt. My head rests on his chest, and I can feel the difference between him and Lorenzo. Lorenzo was always a big, strong man, but Tomas is even bigger. I let my hands wander around his back under the pretense of warming themselves up. It’s easy to imagine our bodies entangled in bed and covered with blankets.

Tomas’s lips are on the top of my head, and I can feel his breath warming me. His arms are squeezing us tight together and our bodies are flush. My breasts are pressed against his upper abdomen, and it feels really, really nice.

“Alexis,” he warns, “I’m trying to make this as comfortable for you as possible, but if you keep squirming against me like that, I won’t be able to control my body’s reaction.”

“I didn’t realize I was squirming.” But I see my hands were exploring his back, and I have been rubbing my chest against him. And lower, my belly against his…“Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

He’s looking down at me smirking, “I certainly don’t need an apology. It’s an open invitation.”

I can’t help my chuckle. “A tempting invitation.”

“You’re tempted?”

“You know I am.”

“Then why won’t you let me take you out on a date?”

“You know why.”

“Because you think your feelings for me are really your feelings for my brother?”

I nod.

“Alexis…” he sighs and squeezes are bodies together. “This makes you feel good, doesn’t it?”

I can’t help but to resume my squirming. I nod.

“Give me your hand,” he says.

I reluctantly extricate it from his coat; it feels so nice and warm on his body. He takes my hand and puts my palm on his cheek and holds it there. His five o’clock shadow is coming in, scratching my fingertips.

“Are you attracted to me? To this face, right here in front of you?”

I nod again. 

“And what you know of me? You like who I am?”

I nod again.

He turns to kiss my palm. His hot breath and moist lips make me ache for more. 

“And my lips. Don’t you want to know what it feels like to kiss me?”

I stare at his mouth. His tongue moistens his pale, pink lips. I really want them on me. Can he make me feel as good as Lorenzo? Is it in their matching DNA?

I nod my consent.

He slowly drops his head to kiss me, lips barely grazing mine. The anticipation of more has me hot and needy deep in my gut. My lips part for air, and his tongue is there, gently licking, probing. My tongue meets his, and desire floods through me, a monumental feeling for the smallest touch. 

He groans a deep and needy rumble, and I’m done. His desire for me is almost as intoxicating as his mouth. I push my tongue deep between his lips, wrap my arms tight around him, and kiss him madly. My belly feels a forceful pressure as his cock hardens and grows...oh, that feels like his brother, and I’m relieved and grateful. He’s licking so deep, sucking so hard, and lavashing my mouth.

I WANT him. Head to toe WANT him. The desire to mate with this man is overwhelming and beyond biological. I NEED it!

I’m irrationally angry when Lorenzo breaks away to watch my reaction. I pull his head back down to my mouth and make him kiss me more. I want him to take me here and now like he did in Mexico. We never waited for a bed!

He growls and grabs my ass, squeezing it tight, pulling me close, grinding me against his cock. My arousal is building, and I think I might come if he keeps rubbing my clit like that…

“Lorenzo,” I whimper. Then I freeze abruptly. Oh God, what did I say? Oh no...no...not Lorenzo! Tomas! I push away from him and wrap myself up tight in my coat. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He’s bent over catching his breath. I want him to close his jacket to protect him from the cold, so I can’t see his straining cock that my body still aches for.

“Alexis...it’s nothing.”

“No, Tomas. It’s not nothing! I thought I was kissing him. I was wanting him. Remembering HIM. I can’t do this with you thinking about him.

“Why not? It feels good, doesn’t it. I feel good to you.”

“Obviously.”

“Then give me a chance to make memories with you.”

I can feel the boat slowing into the dock...my God, how long were we kissing?

“I can’t,” I say. “I’m not ready. I’ve lost two people I love this year…”

“So what? You’re not going to live your life now? Come on, Alexis, I can feel how bad you want this. You’ve come up with some random reasons in your head that you shouldn’t want it, but they’re just arbitrary ‘shoulds.’”

“I said his name! I literally thought you were HIM!”

He comes close and puts his hands on my arms. “He’s familiar to you, that’s all. Let me be familiar to you.”

I shake my head. I can’t handle a third Alcazar man messing with my life.

He rubs his hands up and down my arms. “Have dinner with me, Alexis. Come over tomorrow night.”

“No.”

“Yes.” 

His persistence is so Lorenzo! “No!” 

“How about this? Over the next twenty-four hours, keep track of who you think about more...Lorenzo and all your memories together, or me and this one short ride on this damn launch. If I can come close, after just one kiss...just one amazing fucking kiss, think of what a night together would do. Think of a week...a month...more.”

Why does he make this all sound so reasonable? This is anything but reasonable. This is ridiculous! Crazy!

The launch is stopped at the dock, waiting for us to exit. I’m staring at vibrant, hungry, blue eyes, and a mouth I’m desperate to kiss again. 

“Tomas…” is all I say, because I don’t have words. I’m buying time.

He pulls me into him again and cradles my head. “I’ll have dinner ready for you at eight tomorrow night at my house. If all you can think of is my brother, don’t come...you can have more time to grieve, or whatever it is you need. If you’re thinking of me instead, come. I’ll feed you. I’ll entertain you…”

“Entertain me?” I laugh in spite of myself.

“I’ll do anything. Whatever you want.”

He’s humming with excitement waiting for my response. I’m just not sure.

“Please, Alexis…” he sighs. “Please.” He drops his lips to my cheek and kisses me softly. “Please.” He kisses my other cheek. “Please.” He kisses my lips in the sweetest, softest way, and I’m getting caught up again…

“Alexis?” says a soft, woman’s voice to my right. I pull away from Tomas and find Lulu, Rocco, and Charlotte boarding the launch.

“Hi, Lulu. Hello,” I wave at the children. “You visiting your brother?”

Lulu is looking between me and Tomas. Her face is wary, and I remember she and Lorenzo had some sort of bad blood between them, though I never knew why.

“Have you met Tomas Delgado?”

“No, I haven’t. You look an awful lot like your brother...who tried to kill me more than once.”

Tomas’s eyes raise in surprise. I’m not surprised. 

“I’m sorry to hear that. It appears my brother left a lot of damage in his wake.”

My body’s arousal has finally settled with the children present, and I’m ready to make my escape. 

“I hope you’re staying the night at Wyndemere,” I say.

“We’ll see if the weather lets up.”

“Well, I better get home. Goodbye, Lulu. Goodbye, Charlotte. Rocco.”

I don’t bother saying goodbye to Tomas, knowing he’s going to follow me. And he does, though follow isn’t the right word. He’s next to me with a hand on the small of my back, and I do everything I can not to sink into the man again as I walk. I realize that in our kiss-induced haze, the snow lightened up, and it’s barely coming down now.

We don’t speak until we get to my car. I try to open the door and just get in, but he pulls me by the elbow and says, “Don’t I get a goodbye?”

I lean back against the car and look up at him. He’s beautiful in the moonlight, with snow falling around his face. “Goodnight, Tomas.”

He smiles and leans over me. “Goodnight, Alexis.” He drops his lips to kiss me again.

“No!” I stop him by putting my hand over his mouth. His eyebrows are raised, but he doesn’t fight me. “No. If you kiss me again on solid ground, I’m not confident I’ll make it home.”

He kisses my hand and mumbles between my fingers, “I’d take you home to your bed, Alexis.”

“You’re proving my point for me.”

He keeps kissing my hand, giving gentle licks and nibbles down to my sensitive wrist.

“Mmmm.” I’m tempted to let him. “No!” I pull away and get in my car. 

Before I shut the door, he says, “Eight o’clock tomorrow. My place. You know where it is?”

“I survived a hurricane in that house. Of course I know where it is.” 

He winks at me and closes the door. I can still see the hungry look in his eyes long after I drive away. 

This is going to be a long 24 hours.


	3. First Date

Lorenzo

____________________________

“Daddy, did you get my message?”

I have three more reps, but the sound of my sweet girl’s voice has me stopping in my tracks. I set the weights down, grab a towel, and turn to Lila. “No, sweetheart. My phone’s charging upstairs. What’s going on?”

“I’m going to head over to Molly’s for the night, and we’ll be going to Art Hop tomorrow, so I won’t be back for a few days. You’ll have the house to yourself for your date with Alexis.”

A strange pain pulls at my heart at the idea of my daughter not sleeping under my roof. But one thing I’ve learned in my short time with Lila, is she has her mother’s backbone of steel, and her father’s persistence. I’ve learned to pick my battles. “Have you checked the forecast? There’s going to be a blizzard tonight.”

She rolls her eyes, “I can handle driving in a little snow.”

“It’s not ‘a little’ snow, my love. Have Miguel and Felipe drive you in the Range Rover.”

“Daddy, I can drive myself just fine.”

“Lila Rae, you’re not leaving this house unless it’s in the back seat of that car.”

She knots her face up in defiance, but she knows not to push me when it comes to her safety. “Fine, but they’re not coming inside Molly’s apartment, and they’re not following us around Art Hop.”

Maddening young woman. I dry the sweat off my hands and face as I walk over to her. I hang the towel over my bare shoulder to free up my hands to cradle her face. “Sweetheart, you know who I am. You know the dangers of being my daughter. You agreed that if you stay with me, you’ll have full protection at all times. This is not negotiable.”

Lila looks very much like me, but when she raises her eyebrow like that, all I can see is her mother. “So you’re telling me if I went to live with mom you’d call off the guards?”

I kiss her nose and let her go. “Only if your mother asks me to.”

Lila growls knowing perfectly well Skye would never let me call of her guards, especially after Jerome kidnapped her last summer. 

“You stink, Daddy.” She’s being figurative and literal during my workout, I’m sure.

“I love you, too, princessa. Now go find Miguel. I want a word with him before you leave.”

Lila walks away grumbling, “Hijo de su puta madre. ¿Qué chingados es esto?”

I yell after her, “Watch your mouth, Lila Rae!”

I can’t help the laugh that bubbles in my chest. She can curse in Spanish with the worst men in the world. Imagine my surprise when I spirited my daughter away to Mexico, and she spoke fluent Spanish to all my staff. She told me she demanded her mother hire her a tutor so she could learn her father’s native tongue and feel connected to him.

I bet Skye just loved that. When Skye heard my voice over the phone telling her Lila Rae was safe and recovered from her kidnapping, Skye nearly lost her mind. She didn’t buy for one second that I was ‘Tomas Delgado.’ She was terrified I’d get my revenge on her and put Lila at risk. As much as I hate Skye for her betrayal, I’d never harm Lila’s mother. When she calmed down enough to listen, it was easy to convince her that both she and Lila were safe in my protection. That I’d been protecting them all these years without her knowing anyway.

“Jefe? You wanted to see me?” Miguel is standing at attention in the doorway of my home gym. 

“Yes, Miguel. Did Lila tell you about her plans for the next few days?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t let her out of your sight. Shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lila’s voice calls from down the hall, and I know it’s a warning, “Uncle Tomas! You have a visitor!”

The clock on the wall shows it’s five thirty. If Alexis is coming it shouldn’t be for a couple more hours. Who the hell is it?

“Take Lila in the Range Rover. Update me when she’s settled.”

“Yes, sir.” 

Miguel turns to leave, but has to stop and stand aside to let Lila and the visitor pass. My heart skips a beat when I see who it is…

“Alexis? This is a nice surprise.” I’m suddenly very aware of how sweaty and gross I am midway through my work-out. I grab the towel from over my shoulder and give my face, chest, and arms a superficial wipe-down.

Alexis has stopped just inside the doorway. She’s wearing a pretty, businesslike sheath dress with a tailored jacket over the top. Her mouth is hanging open a little, and she seems to be in shock at my state of undress from the waist up. Lila looks between us smiling conspiratorially. “I’ll see you in a few days, Uncle.”

“Goodbye, sweetheart. Please check in periodically.”

Lila comes over to kiss my cheek. She speaks low, but obviously loud enough for Alexis to hear, “Bye, Daddy...I mean, Uncle. I mean...Is it ok if I call you Daddy? You’ve just been more of dad to me than my father ever was.”

Alexis can’t see the smirk on Lila’s face. I smile indulgently at Lila Rae and kiss her forehead. “Of course, sweetheart. You can call me anything you like. Now, don’t be too hard on Miguel when you leave.”

Lila turns around with a look of mischief and says, “Goodbye, Ms. Davis. Take care of this guy while I’m gone.”

Alexis still hasn’t moved from her spot since she came in. I watch Miguel and Lila leave before I make my way over to my woman. She’s watching me and my bare chest, and she likes what she sees. I use her state of shock to swoop in for a kiss. I grab her around the waist and pull her close. She whimpers when my mouth meets hers. It’s already hanging open, so there is no difficulty getting my tongue inside.

God, I miss her taste. There’s nothing in the world quite like it. And while her tongue is licking against mine, and her hands are rubbing up and down my chest, I’m turned the fuck on. If we were back in Mexico, I’d be buried balls deep in her pussy by now, but since we’re not, and she hasn’t accepted yet that she’s MY woman, I have to wait. And if I’m going to wait to fuck her, I’m going to need step back and slow this down.

Except I can’t step away. The best I can do is take my lips off her for a moment and see if she has more self-control than I do. 

Her moan of frustration when our lips part is music to my ears. Her face drops to my chest and rests on my bare skin. She’s breathing me in; I can feel her lungs expanding with deep pulls of air. She nuzzles against me creating the most sensual friction with my skin and hair. She’s got to be lost in my pheromones to not be completely repulsed by my sweaty body.

She’s kissing my chest now and her hands are snaking around me, pulling me closer. Fuck, she’s got me good and horny now. One of my hands drops to her ass, and the other tangles in her hair. Her mouth latches onto my nipple, and her tongue flicks back and forth.

“Jesus Christ, woman.” I tighten my grip on her hair to pull her head up to look at me. “Make sure this is what you want, baby, because I’m about to nail you against the wall.”

Her eyes are completely glossed over, and I can tell she’s even further gone than me. 

“Alexis?”

I can see her daze clearing and tension begins to set in. A panicky look is taking over. Now she’s going to get all neurotic on me unless I can calm her down before she really gets worked up.

“Don’t panic, Alexis. You’re fine.”

She’s shaking her head, and I wrap my arms around her and squeeze, trying to ground her and keep her with me. 

“I can’t be doing this with you,” she says. “I can’t lose control like this. That’s why I came by to tell you I can’t have dinner with you.”

I smile, “You came by my house to tell me you can’t come to my house?”

“No. I tried calling on my way home from a client’s house, and you wouldn’t answer your phone, so I stopped by.”

“As you can see, I’ve been a little busy.”

Alexis can’t seem to help grazing her fingers over my skin when I draw her attention back to my workout.

“Alexis, are you telling me you didn’t think of me over the last twenty-four hours? You didn’t think of that kiss all night long like I did? You thought of Lorenzo more than you thought of me.”

She flushes deep red. “Come on, Tomas, you know it’s not about that. I’m still grieving. I’m not in a healthy place for a relationship right now.”

I want to caress her face, but I’m afraid if I loosen my grip even the slightest, she’ll take off running. “Then we’ll take this as slow as you need.”

She looks at me incredulously. “Why do you want this so bad?”

“The same reason you do. I’m just not fighting it.” Her muscles relax in my arms, and I chance loosening my grip so I can move her bangs from her eyes. I want a clear view of those dark irises that tell me what her lips refuse to say. “Stay with me for dinner. I promise I’ll behave...at least until the dessert is served.”

She bites her bottom lip and considers my words. The poor thing must’ve been agonizing since the docks about whether or not she’d come.

“Just dinner and conversation,” I purr as persuasively as I can, “...and maybe a little touching, because I just can’t help myself.”

She smiles softly, and I know I have her. She pulls back a few inches and runs a hand over my chest, her fingers running through my hair. “You better get a shirt on if I’m going to stay.”

“I need a shower, too. Come on, let’s get you comfortable so you don’t run off on me while I clean up.”

“Just so you don’t try to drag me into the shower with you.”

“A lovely idea, but I’ve promised to behave.” 

I wrap an arm around her and lead her down the hall and upstairs to my bedroom. There’s something thrilling about taking a lover into your room for the first time. I guess this is a second ‘first’ for us, but she doesn’t know that. And the disappointment of the actual first time was that I didn’t get to invite her...she just wandered in my room in Mexico and terrified the shit out of me. I thought Tomas was breaking in to kill me again until I registered her scent right before I turned around and started fucking her on the floor with all that damn adrenaline surging through me. That was our first time together. I was rough with her...she fucking loved it.

This time, it’s different. I’m in love with her. IN LOVE with her. I worship her. I want her to feel what she means to me. 

But I have to remember she doesn’t love ‘Tomas’...she needs to fall in love with ‘Tomas,’ or the intensity of my feelings for her might drive her away. But it’s a fine fucking line to walk, both with my impatience to have her, and with her propensity to react to possessive, fiery passion. My woman is one to fall hard and fast, and doesn’t respond well to male passivity.

I take her hand and lead her to the sitting area in my room. “There’s the remote for the television, there’s some books, my computer, whatever you need to keep entertained. Can I get you something to drink?”

She’s looking around my room, taking everything in. I had Lila help me decorate the place so it wouldn’t look like a carbon copy of the villa. I think it came out a little too modern for my blood, but Lila felt like Tomas’s artistic eye would prefer something edgy to something classic.

“Just water,” she says quietly observing her surroundings.

“I’ll have it brought up. Promise you won’t leave while I shower?”

“I’ll be here.”

I make the call to one of my staff to bring Alexis her water, then I head to the en suite bathroom. I don’t think I’ve ever showered so quickly in my life. This neurotic, anxious Alexis has me terrified she’s going to bolt like a skittish rabbit. A part of me wants to jerk one off real quick so I’m not acting like a horny teenager around her all evening, but that will just take time I don’t have, and the effects won’t last with how quickly she makes my blood boil.

When I get out and towel off, I consider shaving. She knows me too well with a beard. I’ve only got the growth of the day on my face since I shaved this morning, so I ditch the thought. I wrap a towel around my waist and rush out to my room to make sure she’s still there. 

I find her standing by my desk staring down at my cell phone. I have to walk past her to get to my closet, and she hears my footsteps as I walk by. She jumps a little and turns to see me. 

“Sorry. Your phone kept ringing and my curiosity got the best of me,” she says.

“Is it Lila?” I stop to look at my notifications.

“No. It says ‘Pájaro.’”

I grab the phone and see three missed calls from the same number and sigh. “It’s Téa. Pájaro is an old nickname for her.”

“What does it mean?”

“Bird. She used to talk and chirp away nonstop as I was trying to paint. Her mouth never stopped moving.” Tomas gave me all the information I could possibly need to pretend to be him before I sent him to his death. I threatened that if Téa ever found out about me, I’d have to find a way to silence her. He was very thorough in protecting his sister.

“Have you made up with her yet?”

I laugh darkly, “Made up? She’s the reason my son was killed. I don’t care much to ‘make up’ with her.”

“Lorenzo was the reason Sebastian was killed, not Téa.”

“And Téa was the reason it wasn’t prevented. You did more to help my son than she did.”

“I led your son right to Lorenzo.”

“You thought you were helping him.”

“You’re determined to absolve me of my role in his death, but you’ve convicted your sister of pretty much murdering him herself. Why is that?”

I shrug...Because I want to fuck you and not Téa Delgado. “It’s just the way I see things, Alexis.”

“I’m not certain you’re being fair to your sister.”

“Adopted sister,” I say to put distance between me and Tomas’s family. Then, I give a pathetic attempt at distraction, “It looks like I missed a couple of calls from you, too.”

She smiles at me, “Nice dodge, Tomas.” She nods at the phone, “I was trying to tell you I wasn’t coming.”

I smile back at her, “I’m glad I missed your calls then. I have a couple of the most beautiful salmon filets downstairs that I can’t wait to cook for you.”

I can tell she’s still thinking about Téa, and probably thinking of what a shame it is that I’m pushing her away. I try not to show that I notice by looking back at my phone.

I’ve got a few old messages from Lila Rae telling me about going to Molly’s and Art Hop, and there are some missed calls from my guys in Lázaro Cárdenas. Nothing looks urgent. I set the phone back down and shift my attention back to Alexis hoping she’s ready to move on from uncomfortable topics.

It appears she has moved on. Her eyes are on me, but they’re clearly looking south of my face. For the first time, I realize I’m just a strip of terry cloth away from naked, and that probably is a little much for her, considering she doesn’t realize this isn’t the first time she’s seen my bare body. I turn and lean against the desk, enjoying her obvious appreciation for my form.

“Or we can skip the salmon, if you’d prefer,” I smirk.

She shakes her head and says, “Put some clothes on. I’m here for the fish.”

“The salmon or the eel?”

She snorts. “You’re supposed to be behaving.”

“Fine.” 

I go to the closet to get dressed. I consider what the hell I should wear. Tomas was such a fucking slob, too concerned with paint, music, and other people’s business to give a damn about putting himself together. I’ve been settling for a more contained version of his style. Usually polo shirts and slacks. A benefit of the polo is that Alexis can see the fucking tattoo. But that means I have to see it, too.

I can’t wait until this fucking charade is over. I just need to get her to the point where she knows exactly who I am and still wants to ride me until her legs give out.

I take her down to the kitchen to start the meal I haven’t even prepped for because she arrived so early. I love the kitchen in this house. I missed it, actually. The kitchens in the villa were big and industrial, and I rarely used them. Although this kitchen is large by most people’s standards, it’s warm and comfortable, and I feel perfectly at home in it. 

“Lila Rae made you some sort of sparkling mint raspberry tea to drink if you’re interested.”

“Is there alcohol in it?”

“No. Nikolas told me you stopped drinking.”

“You talked to Nikolas about my drinking?” The tone in her voice tells me she doesn’t want me prying into her life.

“Nikolas and I spent years talking about everything, Alexis.” She cringes a little, as though she’s forgotten about Tomas and Nikolas’s imprisonment. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t prying. I just called to ask him what you like to eat. He said you’d eat anything you don’t have to cook, and you haven’t had a drink for a few years.”

She’s mollified. “Then sure. I’ll have some. That was thoughtful of her.”

I get her a glass of ice and take out the pitcher of Lila’s tea concoction. I laugh as I pour the murky, reddish-brown, bubbling liquid, and say, “I hope this tastes better than it looks.”

“You’re not drinking it with me?” She raises worried eyebrow at the glass. 

“I’m not sure I could swallow that down.”

“And if Lila asks what you thought about her tea?”

“I’ll lie?”

She holds up her glass and waits for me to pour my own. I give in to her pressure and pour one for me. “Bottoms up.”

I hold my breath as we tip our glasses back. A strange combination of sweet and tart overwhelms my mouth. I realize the only two things I’ve had to drink in the last few decades have been water and booze. Lila’s drink isn’t terrible, but it’s not anything I’d ever choose for myself.

“It’s not bad,” says Alexis.

I snort with laughter. “Sure.”

Alexis laughs. “So, do you think Lila is trying to lure me in, or drive me away with this?”

“Lila adores you,” I say, and I suddenly feel choked up. It’s more than a man could ever hope to have his daughter accept the woman he loves.

“She hardly knows me.”

“She knows what I’ve told her. She knows what Molly’s told her. And she knows how I feel about you.”

Alexis’s eyes soften as I talk about my daughter. “She called you Daddy. How did you feel about that?”

I smile and can’t help the tears moistening my eyes. What Alexis doesn’t know is that Lila first called me Daddy the day I saved her from Jerome. My guards brought her to me in the limo where I was waiting. She just witnessed Tomas get shot by one of Jerome’s guards, and she was crying and screaming for her daddy. She was in shock when she saw me. I had to convince her I was Lorenzo. I had to tell her stories of her birth, of her mother, and stories of me that I was sure Skye would’ve shared.

When the truth sank in, she looked at me like I was the missing piece in her life finally falling into place. “Daddy?” she asked. And when I nodded and said, “It’s me, baby girl,” she threw her arms around me, kissed my cheek, and wouldn’t let go. Now, she’s my partner in crime, my co-conspirator, my mockingbird, no longer untainted, but mimicking the songs I sing.

“It was one of the most special moments of my life. I love that girl.”

“And she obviously loves you. You’ll be better for her than Lorenzo. That’s one gift he gave her, was a life away from him.”

I try my hardest to smile and not get my hackles up. “You don’t think he would’ve been good for her?”

“Oh, he loved her dearly, and would’ve given her the moon…”

“But?”

“But everyone Lorenzo loved got hurt.”

“I won’t let her get hurt,” I say with all the conviction I can muster.

“I know, Tomas. That’s why she’s better off with you. You’re doing right by her.”

I turn to the salmon to start my prep so I don’t have to show my disappointment in her thinking Tomas is better than me in any way. I’ve been getting off on her insistence that she wants ‘Lorenzo’ instead of ‘Tomas,’ but this feels a little too like rejection for my taste.

“Are you thinking about Baz?” she asks.

Not at all. “How can you tell?”

“You look sad. Disappointed.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. How could you be? I know what it’s like to lose a child. Two children, in fact.”

My heart breaks for her. I hate seeing her hurt. If there was anyway I could fix what happened to her kids…

“I’m sorry,” she says, wiping her eyes. “You didn’t invite me here to weep on you.”

“I invited you here to do anything you want on me,” I intentionally layer on the innuendo to lighten the mood.

She doesn’t bite. “You’re a sweet man, aren’t you?”

“Did you expect me to be hard and vicious like my brother?”

“I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but your brother was a sweet man sometimes, too. Aside from all the murdering, lying, and kidnapping, he was shockingly kind, affectionate, and indulgent when he wanted to be. Sometimes even in spite of himself. That’s what makes this so hard for me, Tomas. He was a lot more like you than you realize.”

I don’t say anything for fear of giving myself away. I focus on chopping garlic instead. I’m just happy she remembers something of how much I loved her in Mexico.

“Again, I’m sorry,” she says. She waves around her hands while she talks, and I know she’s nervous. “God, I knew it would upset you, but I said it anyway. See, this is why I knew this wouldn’t work.”

She looks like she’s getting ready to bolt, so I set the knife down and close the few steps between us. I box her in with my arms on either side of the counter. “Alexis.” I make my voice deep and strong...it seems to settle her down. “I want to hear the truth. How could we possibly have anything real or meaningful if you don’t tell me the truth?”

Yes, I fucking know the hypocrisy of my words. I’m going to tell her the truth...eventually.

“Real or meaningful? We’re just going to skip past the superficial dating phase?”

“That was our time in Mexico when you’d bring me food and make sure Lorenzo wasn’t killing me.”

“So,” she laughs, “what was our first date? Was it our romantic conversation through the vent? Or horchata in the sitting room with the guard breathing down our necks?” 

It’s amazing how my proximity, my control, settles her down...and turns me the fuck on. “No, Alexis. This,” I look around the room. “This is our first date. A woman like you deserves a proper first date.”

Her hands move to my chest, and the way her fingertips are sliding over the curves of my pecs, I know she remembering me with my shirt off. “You make it hard not to want this with you.”

“You don’t want to want me.”

“It would be a lot easier if I didn’t.”

“I want you, Alexis. Unapologetically. I’d do anything, ANYTHING, to have you.”

“Even give me the space I need to figure things out?”

The wind leaves my sails. “Yeah, even that.” I step back and wait to see if she leaves. Instead, she reaches for her tea and leans back against the counter.

I take the win and get back to prepping the food. She’s watching me with studious eyes, as though I’m dismantling a time bomb. 

“So, you really don’t cook?” I ask as I start searing the salmon.

She shakes her head, “Nope.”

“You can’t make anything in the kitchen?”

“I can make you a mean bowl of popcorn.”

“On the stove? That’s impressive.”

She laughs, “Uh no. In the microwave.”

I shake my head in utter disbelief. “That’s not ‘making’ popcorn, Alexis. The microwave literally has a popcorn button. All you have to do is put a bag in the appliance and push one button.”

And now it’s her turn to shake her head in amused disbelief, “And this is your strategy for winning me over? Making fun of my cooking?”

“No, I’m not making fun. I’m just shocked that a woman who seems to be good at everything else in life can’t even make herself a piece of toast.”

“A toaster has settings. There are many opportunities to ruin toast. As you said, the microwave doesn’t allow for popcorn failure.” She’s quiet a moment, then says, “I’m not good at everything else in life, you know. I’m actually only good at one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Being a lawyer.”

“And a mother, and a friend, and an advocate, and espionage, and a lover…”

“How do you know if I’m any good at being a lover?”

I smirk, oh baby do I ever. “If your kisses are any indication…”

She blushes and looks away. “You have more confidence in me than I do.”

“About your skill set in the bedroom?”

“No, about being all those other things.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Of course not. I’m sure Nikolas told you a little about where I come from...the Cassadines.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know...I think I survived my childhood, but my soul didn’t escape unscathed.”

I’m hardly watching what I’m doing with the asparagus, so focused on what she’s saying, “How so?”

She laughs darkly, “I mean...look who I fell in love with, Tomas. If that doesn’t scream RUINED, I don’t know what else does.”

“You’re saying Lorenzo’s soul was ruined, too?”

“You, of all people, are asking me that? You hated Lorenzo.”

I shrug, “You believe you gravitate to what’s familiar?”

“I paid a lot of money for a therapist to figure that out.”

“Well, you were snowed; he was wrong.”

She cocks her head and smirks, “How so?”

“You gravitate to people like Lorenzo, and all the other men you’ve fallen in love with in your life, because you think only men with ruined souls themselves will accept yours as it is. Hell, maybe that’s why you push me away...you don’t think I’m as ruined as the rest of them.”

She considers my words and takes another drink of Lila’s concoction. 

“Well?” I prompt.

“How much do you charge an hour?”

I laugh. “Only your attention.” I put my spatula aside, and lift a hand to her cheek, “But the thing is, sweetheart...my soul is just as ruined as yours, if not more so.”

“I doubt that. Nikolas doesn’t know all I endured. And I have some secrets you can’t pull from a google search.”

“Maybe I’m not using you as the reference point. Maybe I just know the depth of my own darkness.”

She puckers her lips in consideration. “You’re disgustingly right, you know. The more messed up you talk about being, the safer I feel with you...like maybe you won’t reject me when you really get to know me. Is that not twisted?”

I smile, “Completely dysfunctional, but convenient for my current goals.”

Her laugh is sweet and spontaneous...just like I dreamed…

Our meal together is a perfect opportunity to dote on her. She’s freed herself of that stuffy blazer, and her arms are bare in her black dress. I get to feed her, talk to her, and watch her mouth as she licks her lips. I’m in heaven. And as torturous as the anticipation is to take her to my bed...I can’t help but revel in the HOPE synonymous with anticipation.

Everything is working out the way it should.

“Dessert now, or later?” I ask.

“Later,” she says. She’s eyeing the fireplace in the adjoining living room with a glossy-eyed contentment that could only be the result of a full and satisfied stomach.

“Come,” I say. She takes my hand, and I lead her to the living room. I dim the lights on the way to the sofa that’s seated next to the flames. My staff have kept a nice fire going in the big fireplace that’s the focal point of the room.

Alexis sits close, right up against me, so when she turns my way, her legs lift onto mine. My hands greedily accept her invitation for human contact. One is on her leg, and the other around her shoulders stroking her soft, fragrant hair.

“Thank you,” she says. “Dinner was impressive, and the company even more so.”

“It was my pleasure. A pleasure I hope to repeat again and again and again.”

She’s staring at my lips as I talk, and I know she wants to kiss me. God, I want that, too, but I promised to behave. I really hope she doesn’t.

Her hand is on my arm running her fingers over the DELGADO tattoo like some sort of security blanket. If I wasn’t afraid of missing out on a moment of time with her, I’d close my eyes to ignore her need for that reassurance.

She pulls my arm closer and starts tracing the letters with her finger...almost like a child learning the characters for the first time. I’d be annoyed if wasn’t for her legs moving further onto my lap as she does so.

“Have you been with a woman since all this happened, Tomas?” 

I shake my head. I haven’t. Another woman would just be an unsatisfying sperm dump. I can do that with my hand in the shower with less time and effort.

“You weren’t eager after all these years?”

“There’s only one person I’m eager for, Alexis. Only one person I could possibly want.”

She looks in my eyes and watches for a reaction as she says, “I think you’re in love with me, Tomas.”

I smile softly. Of course she can see it..she must feel it.

“When did you fall for me?” she asks.

“In Mexico.”

“When in Mexico?”

“I don’t know...it must’ve been the moment I saw your face. I fought it...but you were just so damn beautiful.”

“So it wasn’t my brain? It was my face you fell for?”

I love the sound of her voice when she’s teasing me. And I love the smirk on her lips. “I love your mind, too, Alexis.” 

I remember that sharp, intellectual District Attorney who was fierce as hell across the interrogation table. I smile at the image in my head, though I wasn’t smiling at the time. I was such dumbass man, focused on vengeance for a brother who treated me like shit, and too blinded by hate to see the glorious woman in front of me.

She pulls my arm up to her face and kisses the tattoo. It’s excrutiating pleasure! Her lips, full and dark, on my skin, send explosive, euphoric pulses to my brain. The kisses are no meager bumpings of mouth to arm; they’re everything sensual, with a promise for more. Her tongue is tracing over the letters with each lick and kiss.

My dick is hard, but my fists are clenched. 

She’s making love to his fucking name! I hate it! I can’t stand it...

I wrest my hand from her grip and grab her jaw. My other hand holds the back of her head. Her eyes are wide in shock and arousal as I bring my mouth down on hers, claiming her as MINE! As Lorenzo Alcazar’s! Fuck Tomas Delgado!

And God, does she respond to my kiss. MY kiss. Not that bastard’s name. She gives a loud moan, and it’s music to my ears. She’s climbing on top of me, straddling my lap. The heat of her cunt permeates layers of clothes between us. Her tongue is madly seeking an erotic dance with mine as my mouth sucks on her lips. 

I pull the zipper on the back of her dress down, but the fucking thing is stuck somewhere. Maybe there’s a clasp I can’t feel. Fuck that. I yank it apart and hear a pop of thread. Finally, the damn dress comes down. My hands feel her perfect, bare skin until another fucking piece of fabric gets in the way. I’m distracted a moment by her licking deep and rolling her hips on my cock before I remember to pull the bra down to get to her tits. 

“Oh, fuck.” They’re perfect. The weight of the soft mounds, how they fill my palms, how her nipples press against my hands and between my fingers. I can’t squeeze them hard enough. I need them in my mouth. I need more!

My memories of her perfect form are nothing to reality, to the flesh and passion of the woman astride me. 

I can’t take my mouth off her to get to her tits, so I drag it down her throat. My lips feel the vibrations of her whimpers, moans, and squeals. My tongue feels her blood pulsing through her jugular. My mouth seals it all in, pulling the skin beneath, trying to find a fucking way to get more of her!

I’m lost in her neck, in all it’s peaks and valleys, and in the beautiful scent clogging my brain of any distraction. But Alexis isn’t so lost as I am. With her mouth unattended, she remembers where mine was headed and pulls my head down to her tits, forcing me to fulfill that unspoken promise. I growl in hunger as I surround her breast with my mouth. Sucking on her neck, I met resistance of taut skin and firm muscles, but her tits let me suck up all the flesh, pliable and smooth, bending to my teeth and tongue. Each drag on her nipple feels like I’m jerking my cock. All I can think is if I choke on her nipple, it would be the most glorious death I could hope to have.

I suck on the bud, flick it with my tongue, pull it to a sharp peak. My tongue is lost in the rough texture of her nipple, so tightly aroused, in such stark contrast to the soft pliable skin of her tits. My hand grips her tit, firming up the rest of the mound, and sucking on that, too. 

The best part of all this, is there is a second breast and a second fucking nipple!

I feel the moisture of her cunt seeping through my pants, and when she rubs her clit on my cock, I buck up as if trying to fuck her through three layers of clothes. 

“Lorenzo!” she screams. And I grunt in elated joy. “Oh God! Lorenzo!”

Then, she stills and tenses...I look up in her eyes…

Not again.

“Oh, God,” she’s devastated. “Tomas…” She pulls away and climbs off my lap before I can stop her. “Tomas.” She whispers the name again and again as she scurries away. “Tomas. Tomas.”

I stand to follow her. It’s hard to walk with this fucking hard on. “Alexis...don’t worry about it. Come back here.”

She’s pulling up her bra and zipping up her dress. She finds her blazer and puts it on. “I can’t, Tomas. I can’t do this.”

“Why not?”

She turns, and the storm outside is nothing to the one raging in her eyes. “Because I want HIM! I hate him and I want him! I feel like I’m fucking him when I’m with you! That’s not right! That’s not normal!” She’s crying now. I hate seeing her cry.

“Baby, none of this is normal, but it’s going to take time.”

“Don’t you hear me? I want to fuck him and I hate myself for it. He killed my babies and I want to fuck him! Don’t you get how filthy that is!? Don’t you see how ruined I am?!”

“No more than me! Jesus Christ, Alexis, I still want you! I want to be your Tomas or your Lorenzo or whoever the fuck you need.”

“I need a goddamn asylum!” She grabs her purse and coat by the door and runs outside. 

“Fuck!” I chase after her, the icy, snowy winds pelt me in the face, and I lose her almost as soon as I’m on my front steps. “Alexis! Get the hell inside! It’s a white out, for Christ’s sake!”

I can’t see her. Shit, I hear her car starting. “No! Baby, come back!”

I see her lights not far from me. She hits the gas and her tires spin before they find traction. I run to her, slamming a hand on the top of the car for her stop, but she’s gone!

“Damn it!” 

I run inside and call for anyone left at the house. My men come running...Santiago, Alejandro, Alonso, Marcos. “Alexis just left the house. Call up to the front gate and see if she already left. Follow her. Make sure she gets safely home or back to me. If anything happens to her, I swear to God, the snow will be painted red by morning.”

The men scatter. I run upstairs to grab my boots and coat. I’ve got to look for her, too. When I get back to the foyer, Alonso is running in from outside. “Jefe, she didn’t make it to the gate. We’ve locked it up, and we’re searching the grounds.”

“Her car?”

“She ran it off the drive, and it’s stuck in a bank. Her footprints are gone.”

“Come on.” I pull the collar of my coat up over my ears and run out into the white night to find the woman who hates and loves me so madly she’d risk death to escape me.


	4. Blizzard

Alexis

____________________________

Panic attacks feel dramatic and exaggerated in retrospect. But I guess that’s quite literally the nature of them - a catastrophic interpretation of a threat. At the time, there seemed no greater tragedy than confusing Tomas for Lorenzo and wanting to make love to him like the last six months never happened. I bolted out of there like my life depended on it, fight or flight in full force. Now my legs are numb, probably frost-bitten, struggling through a foot of snow, and I think I might die in Tomas’s front yard. Needless to say, my interpretation of ‘threat’ has significantly changed in the last twenty minutes. 

I hope I’m heading in the right direction. I’m so cold, I’m not even embarrassed or ashamed to go running back to Tomas to beg for warmth by that roaring fire. I pull my useless coat tighter around my body, like that’s going to help me fend off the cold on my bare legs in this stupid dress. 

I could be inside making love to Tomas right now. I wouldn’t even hate myself for imagining he’s Lorenzo just to feel his body heat. I could tell myself it’s survival, like I did in Mexico. 

It’s so cold, not even thinking of sex with Tomas is helping me warm up. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other because I really think I’ll die if I don’t make it back to the house, but my uncontrollable shaking is making it hard to even do that.

Why are the grounds so damn large?! Why couldn’t I be just a little more athletic?

I really hope Molly is safe at home. I had no clue this storm would be so bad. I hope she’s prepared and not crazy enough to be running around in it like her mother.

“Alexis!” I hear a faint whisper of my name being yelled through the white wall of snow. I’ve never been so relieved to hear my own name in my life.

“Tomas!” Where is my voice? It seems to disappear as soon as it’s gone from my mouth. “Tomas!” I try again. I don’t even know which direction to yell. Where did his voice come from? The wind is mixing everything up.

Hands are on me from behind, and another coat is being wrapped around my shoulders. I think I hear him talking, “I’ve got you, baby. Are you hurt?”

I try to tell him I’m just cold, but the wind is stealing my words. Gravity shifts, and he’s cradling me. I wrap my arms around his neck as tight as I can. Why would I ever run from this man?

He’s stepping high to get through the soft powder. It feels like it takes forever to get back to the house, but he’s moving with such purpose, he obviously knows where he’s going. Warmth is coming. 

“I’m sorry,” I say, though I’m not sure he can hear me in the wind.

But he does hear me. I can tell, because even though he’s focused on getting us back inside, he squeezes me in reassurance.

So maybe I do feel embarrassed for running now that he’s having to go through all this trouble to get me right back to where all this started. A part of me feels I should just put my feet down and walk, but I don’t think I can handle my bare skin touching the snow anymore, even if everything is numb at this point.

He carries me with such ease...just like his brother…

Finally, we’re at the front door, which is thrown open for us by one of his men. Tomas barks an order to an older woman at the door who runs upstairs ahead of us. He reminds me so much of Lorenzo when he’s like this. He doesn’t take me to the fireplace like I expect, instead we’re going upstairs. His stride doesn’t falter as we go up, and I feel like I’m back at the villa with my hurt ankle...I was running then, too.

He brings me into his bedroom and then to the master bathroom. The woman he spoke to downstairs is running a bath. 

“Gracias, Maria,” he says, excusing her. She bows out and leaves us alone. 

He brings me to a chair in front of an empty vanity as the water and bubbles fill the tub. He sits me on the seat and kneels before me, cradling my face in his hands. Worry has his blue eyes narrowed, assessing every inch of my face. 

“Are you ok?” his voice cracks.

“...cold.” All the words I meant to say don’t come out. “So...sorry.”

“I’ll get you warm, ok?”

I nod as my teeth chatter. 

“Can I undress you?”

I nod again. His deft finger remove his coat and mine, then my useless blazer. My shoes are next, one by one. He unzips my dress once again, far less sensually than before, but no less urgent.

His hands are warm on my cold body as he releases the snap of my bra. I don’t feel vulnerable in front of him for some reason. I feel completely safe. He doesn’t gawk at my body, but he’s not avoiding it either. As he’s sliding my panties down my frozen legs, it’s like he’s handling a porcelain doll, all appreciation, all delicate care. 

He lifts me once again and brings me to the tub. I notice it’s about half full, and my cold body both craves the heat, and is terrified by it. I hold onto him as he sits me on the edge and puts my feet in the warm water. It’s so hot on my icy toes, a prickling pain radiates up my legs. 

“It’s ok,” he says. “You’ll get used to it. It’s ok.”

“This isn’t the way I imagined you first seeing me naked,” I chatter.

He laughs, “Me neither, but beggars can’t be choosers. Let’s get you in a little more, sweetheart.”

We continue the painful process of submerging my body in the warm water. A bath really is the most efficient way to get me warm, and was quick thinking on his part. I’m finally able to sit back and relax in the tub as the water fills around me. When the bubbles are threatening to fall over the sides of the porcelain, he turns the water off.

The warmer I get, the more shame sets in. Thank goodness my naked body is covered with bubbles now, or the embarrassment would be too much to bear. Tomas sits on the edge of the tub and watches me intently, only adding to my self-consciousness. 

“Why did you run?” he asks.

I shiver violently, and it has nothing to do with the temperature. 

“You ok?” 

“I’m fine…” I consider my answer to his previous question. “I ran because I was scared.”

“Of what?”

“Of what might happen with us. Of messing up. My twisted heart and my overactive libido have a habit of getting me into trouble.”

“When you’ve fallen for someone in the past, you’ve always been let down.”

“In monumentally catastrophic ways.”

He caresses my cheek with the back of his hand. “I won’t hurt you, Alexis.”

“That’s what they all say,” I laugh, But actually I believe Tomas. I’m more worried I’m going to be the one to hurt him. I’m in love with his horrible brother, and I can’t trust what I’m feeling for Tomas.

“Alexis, please don’t run from me anymore.” He puts his hand on his belly, “It’s the worst feeling in here knowing you might bolt at any moment...worse yet when you actually do.”

“I’m sorry. It was thoughtless and stupid. It felt exactly the same as when…” Shit. I almost brought up Lorenzo again.

“Like when? Just tell me, I don’t care if it’s about Lorenzo.”

I almost brush off his protestations, but on second glance, he really doesn’t seem to care. He looks like he just wants to know what I’m thinking. “Do you remember when I watched Lorenzo kill that man in Mexico? I ran from him and he threw me in the cell next to you?”

He nods quietly.

“It felt like that. I was terrified. It was all bad instinct and fight or flight. And just like I didn’t think about consequences when I ran in Mexico, I didn’t think about what would happen driving off in the snow. And just like Lorenzo, you ended up carrying me upstairs and taking care of me in spite of myself.”

“Are you telling me that as soon as you’re scared, you’re going to run again?” He has a pained look on his face. “You don’t have to run. I’ll give you anything you want. Anything you need to feel safe and secure.”

I laugh, “God, if that doesn’t sound like Lorenzo…” He still looks pained. “I’ll try to just talk to you. Clearly it doesn’t do either one of us any good when I react on impulse.”

His face looks mollified. “Good. And you’re getting color back in your cheeks. Can I see your fingers and toes?”

I wiggle them in the water. “Are you checking for frostbite?”

He shrugs. “I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

I give him my hands to inspect first, and he looks them over sweet and delicately. Then he goes to the foot of the tub and reaches for my feet. 

“Are we going to need an amputation?” I tease.

He doesn’t smile at my joke as he places my feet back down. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t run again. Please.”

“I won’t.” He looks terribly sad and anxious. “Hey,” I reach a hand out to him, inviting him back up to my head. He grasps it and comes closer. “I won’t run, Tomas. I know you’re not Lorenzo. Try to understand, I ran because...I mean, look...I’ve had a few traumatic experiences in my life, and when I’m scared like that...I’m not scared anymore.”

He nods solemnly, still looking so sad. I hate that I’ve made him feel this way. He’s been so good to me. “Tomas…”

He smiles without any twinkling in his eyes and touches my face. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to check on Lila. Would you like me to have some coffee or hot tea brought up?”

He’s leaving to avoid me, I’m sure. “Coffee, please.”

He squeezes my hand and gives me that joyless smile before he goes. I sigh and shiver once again as I sink down into the water. After about ten minutes, Maria comes back in with a tray of a few things. I try not to let my disappointment show that it’s not Tomas when I thank her.

“I brought you some unused supplies from Miss Lila’s bathroom. El Señor wants to make sure you have everything you need.” She’s brought shampoo, conditioner, body wash, a loofah, and a razor. “Here is a towel and some clothes for you. Do you need anything else?”

I shake my head. I’m surprised at how uncomfortable I am with having staff wait on me. It’s only been about six months since Mexico. She gathers up my dirty clothes from the floor and leaves quickly, perhaps sensing my discomfort.

I finish my bath promptly, now that I’m all warmed up. Lorenzo’s towels are big and soft, and if I was at home, I’d just wrap myself in one and snuggle up by the fire. But since I’m not, I see what clothes Maria brought for me to wear.

Chills run up and down my body when I see a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that must belong to Tomas waiting for me. I like the idea of wearing his clothes a little too much. I try the pants first, rolling up the waist and the bottoms a few times in order to make them fit without dragging on the floor. I lift the white t-shirt and assess it, knowing I’ll be swimming in it when I put it on. 

With only a flicker of warning, the lights go out in the bathroom, and I’m left completely in the dark, save from a muted dancing light coming from the bedroom. 

“Alexis?!” Tomas’s voice drifts in. It’s nice to know he’s been close by.

“I’m fine! I’m just out of the bath.”

A light comes in, held by Tomas. It looks to be coming from his cell phone. He stops in his tracks as he looks at me. I’m still only wearing his sweatpants, and have yet to don the shirt. My breasts are on full display of the spotlight of his cell phone. I’m frozen still, and he makes no indication of moving right away. I just watch him take in my body with a hungry look in his eyes.

His hunger for me is very apparent as he stands staring with the equivalent of a spotlight on me. It’s no little thing to be desired that much from a man like Tomas Delgado. It’s just as potent as being desired by Lorenzo Alcazar. My sex clenches, and I’m a breath away from begging him to touch me.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and steps forward. He sets his phone down on the counter with the light up to illuminate the room and comes to me. He takes the shirt from my hand and searches for the right holes for my head and limbs. He brings the shirt over my head and helps me put it on.

“You’re beautiful, you know,” he says almost businesslike as he pulls the shirt down, his fingers trailing down my sides. “You steal the breath right out of my lungs like no one ever has.”

“Then why did you put the shirt on me rather than take the pants off?”

He moves to the counter and pulls a brush out of one of the drawers. He leads me to the vanity and sits me down. Lila Rae’s hair products were expensive and did lovely things to the moisture in my hair, so when he starts brushing, there’s little resistance. I’m not used to being babied as such, but it seems Tomas is much like Lorenzo in his obsessive need to take care of me. 

He focuses on his task as he finally answers my question. “The last time I started taking your clothes off, you nearly killed yourself running from me. You can imagine I’m a little gun-shy about repeating the process.”

“I told you I’m not going to run again.”

“I don’t want you to have to fight the impulse.”

When he finishes brushing my hair, he makes sure I have my coffee, and he leads me back out to his bedroom by the light of his cell phone. I see he’s started a fire up here, and one of his men is leaving supplies and extra wood by the fireplace. Tomas speaks to him a moment in Spanish as we walk toward the fire.

“We’re staying up here?” The idea of enduring the storm in his bedroom heats my blood to no little degree.

He smiles. “Well, the power just went out, and there are only two fireplaces in the house by which to keep warm. My typical protocol for a power outage is for staff to use the one downstairs, and the family to use this one. If you’d like privacy, I can go down with the staff.”

“Of course not. I’d like you to stay with me.” I squeeze his hand to punctuate the words. Then I realize the bizarreness of what he just said. “You have protocols for power outages?”

He nods.

The thought makes me laugh, “I never really imagined you much of planner. I always saw you as more free-spirited and impulsive. Maybe that was my projection of you when you told me you were an artist.”

Tomas chuckles, “In the CIA, they teach us to have contingency plans for everything. And I haven’t been ‘spirited’ about much of anything for a long time. Now, the only things that give me any sort of passion and drive are building a secure life for me and Lila, and...and for you…if you’ll ever have me.”

I seal my lips together. The inevitability of me and Tomas seems more and more likely every moment we spend together. I think it might be by the sheer force of his will.

His man leaves the room with a few more words with Tomas. I recognize him as one of Lorenzo’s men from Mexico. Alonso or something. Strange that Tomas would use Lorenzo’s men.

“I received a call from Lila’s guard, while you were in the bath,” Tomas says. “He said Lila made it to Molly’s apartment safely. He’s making sure Lila, Molly, and TJ have everything they need for the storm.”

I sigh in relief. “Thank you. I didn’t realize that’s where Lila was going when she left.” 

“Our girls seem to have grown quite fond of each other,” he says.

I wonder which of Lorenzo’s guards is at Molly’s house right now? One that cared for me in Mexico? One that helped hold me against my will? “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you using Lorenzo’s men? Don’t they hate you for trying to kill their boss?”

He smiles. “You remember them?”

“Of course I do.”

“They are no longer Lorenzo’s men. They’re Lila’s men. They’re shockingly devoted to her, and loyal to the checks she has me write in her name.”

“They seem very responsive to you in particular.”

“Like I said, I write the checks.”

“Isn’t it strange to have the people who imprisoned you taking care of you? The men who assaulted you are providing your protection?”

Tomas laughs. “I guess it does sound strange when you put it like that. To be fair...Only two men in Mexico assaulted me unprovoked. Lorenzo and the guard who hit you, Alberto. Both of them are dead.”

“Both dead thanks to me, I guess.”

He strokes my cheek and lifts my chin. “Don’t get caught up in personalizing responsibility for the mess in Mexico, Alexis. It’s like you said, you were just trying to survive a fucked up situation.”

“What I did to Lorenzo was about more than just survival.”

“No...it wasn’t. Let it go, Alexis.”

I feel such a strong surge of love and gratitude for the man in front of me...yet I know it’s not possible to have such strong feelings for him. We just don’t know each other well enough. I know the feelings I have for him are projections of my love for Lorenzo. What’s strange is I don’t feel all the simultaneous overt hostility toward Tomas that I feel when I consciously think of Lorenzo. It’s like my subconscious is filtering out all the bad and just looking for excuses to allow this newer, ‘better’ version of Lorenzo into my life.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asks. His fingers run through my wet hair. 

I shake my head, “Just the same old stuff. You and Lorenzo. I’m sure it’s going to get old for you hearing about it all the time, but the more time we spend together, the more and more similar you seem. Even being in this house...Lorenzo’s old house...The last storm I was caught up in, I was here. It was a summer hurricane. I was pregnant with Molly, leaking amniotic fluid, and Lorenzo took me in. He hated me, but he took me in anyway. He even…,” I get choked up thinking about it, “He even went out in the hurricane to track down a medivac for me. Molly’s dad was going to go, Kristina’s dad offered, but Lorenzo was adamant that the grounds were vast and complicated, and only he knew them well enough to be useful. He saved my life. Just like you did tonight.”

Tomas smiles, “Then he did something right.”

“Your hatred for him has really abated, hasn’t it?”

He sighs deep and says, “Hatred is an emotion that’s about fairness. About right and wrong. The reason we have hatred is to protect ourselves and what’s important to us from the things or people that threaten our entitlements. Hate takes a lot of energy. It’s wasteful to hate a man who isn’t a threat to me any longer.”

I laugh, “See! That sounds just like him! You have this logic, that doesn’t translate to anyone else in the world, but it makes sense to you, and you live your life by it.”

“Oh? And which of these logical constructs did Lorenzo live by?”

“‘A soul for a soul,’” I say mockingly.

He chuckles. “It seems he threw that logic out the window when he fell in love with you of all people, Alexis Davis. You have the power to redefine a man’s sense of purpose in life. He must’ve replaced his moral construct with something like Alexis Davis being the ‘greatest good,’ and all actions should be in service of that one truth.”

I shake my head in amusement, but my next thought takes the playful nature out of our conversation. “No...he wouldn’t have killed Julian if that was the case.”

“Julian kidnapped Lila. As Lila’s current guardian, I can’t say I blame him. I would’ve done the same.”

That hits me in the gut. I’ve not experienced Tomas as a vengeful man before. I look in his eyes, and they have a strange gleam in them. 

“Wouldn’t you, Alexis?” he says darkly. “If you were staring at the man who kidnapped Scout, wouldn’t you put a bullet in his head...or three?”

All the air leaves my lungs as I remember what it felt like shooting Lorenzo...the momentary satisfaction. “Why are we talking about this?”

He shrugs, “You keep telling me I’m more like Lorenzo than I know. I’m realizing you are, too. And I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. It just is. Our brand of ruined souls fits nicely together.”

“Except I seem to feel more shame about it than you do.”

“Shame is a waste of time, just like hating a dead man,” he says in a superior tone. His chin lifts up, almost in defiance, and his shoulders are back. The posture is strangely Cassadine-like in it’s entitlement. “Shame is a social construct. When you’ve lived as isolated as I did in Mexico, you stop caring about societal value impositions. Society didn’t care about me when I was gone.”

“Then maybe shame isn’t the right word...Maybe it’s guilt. Guilt is about self-respect and doing what’s right by your own standards.”

“And do you think letting your child’s kidnapper live is the ‘right’ thing? I know you loved Julian, but he stole a powerful man’s only child, a young girl naive to the ways of a criminal world, the daughter of a man with a worldwide reputation for violent vengeance.”

“I believe in the justice system and the necessity for impartial judgment of a man’s crimes. I made a career of it.”

Tomas smirks as he moves from the couch to kneel by the fire. He grabs a piece of wood and stacks it on top. He continues our conversations as he tends to the flame. “And yet, my darling, your behavior shows otherwise. When you say you have faith in the justice system, I think you’re looking for an Ultimate Rescuer. Someone to save you from the Helena Cassadines of the world. You clung to your justice system because Mikkos and Stefan couldn’t always save you. You cling to it still because Julian and Jerry and Sonny and Ric couldn’t either. That’s why men like me and Lorenzo appeal to you. We’d do anything for you. You’re our ‘greatest good,’ and we can keep you and yours safe from all the Helenas of the world.”

Though he’s stoking the flame, I feel a chill at his speech. And whatever he said to the contrary, it’s now obvious he’s been prying into the details of my private life, either by talking to Nikolas, googling my life history, or hiring a private investigator. I guess it doesn’t matter how he learned so much about me. It’s just telling that he feels entitled to that information without my consent of giving it to him. I wonder why it doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should.

“Except I’m not Lorenzo’s ‘greatest good’ or anything else. He’s dead,” I say forcefully. “I killed him.”

Tomas turns on his knee and smiles at me, “And now I’m left to be your sole rescuer in his place. Lucky me.”

My breath is getting shallow, and I’m feeling the panic rise again...or is that arousal? I don’t know anymore. They’ve become disgustingly synonymous.

Tomas leaves the flames and comes before me on his knees. “I’ve scared you again, haven’t I? You’re wanting to run.” He traces the soft skin at the corner of my eye as though it’s telling him exactly what I’m feeling.

“Yes, but I promised I wouldn’t.”

His face softens, and he’s clearly disappointed in my desire to flee. He speaks soft and low, “I know I’m intense, Alexis. If you need space from me, just ask. If you run again, I might have to tie you down or lock you in this room until the storm passes. I can’t have you hurting yourself again.”

“I told you I won’t run.”

“If you need, I can leave you alone. That’s a safer version of avoidance than running out into a storm, and I’ll oblige if that’s what you want.”

I reach out to him and caress his face. His cheeks are full of day old stubble, and it scratches my skin in a pleasantly stimulating way. It’s such a unique, intimate sensation. I can’t help the lower, seductive tone my voice takes on when I speak, “The moments I want to run away from you are also the moments I feel the greatest pull toward you. I don’t want you to go. I want you here with me.”

He turns his head and kisses the palm of my hand. His kiss is slow and intentional, as though testing the water. 

He pulls back to see at how I’m responding. I don’t know if it’s the rescuing, or the bath, or the coffee, or the romantic fire in the darkness, but I want him. Maybe it’s just that he’s a big, broad man, with a perfectly angular face, and an intoxicating blue-eyed stare. Again, why I want him doesn’t seem to matter, I just spread my legs to pull him in close so he’s kneeling in between. My arms wrap around his neck, and I lean forward to kiss him. 

Unlike when we kissed downstairs, Tomas doesn’t let me take this kiss in the fervent direction I’m wont to go. He’s cautious and contained. His licks are slow and purposeful, and I think he’s trying to keep me sane. 

I pull back and look in his soft, blue eyes. “Don’t,” I plead, “don’t hold back.”

He shakes his head, “When I show you my passion, you run away.”

I cup his cheeks and kiss him softly before I say, “Then this time, don’t let me get away.”

He chuckles darkly, “When you said you needed to be in an asylum, I didn’t realize it was the restraints you were after.”

I laugh with him and pull him in for another kiss. His lips are softer now that he’s more relaxed. Or maybe I’m the one more relaxed, and that calms him by proxy.

His hands travel up the cotton shirt I’m swimming in, and I feel so very HIS. I have on no bra, so his hands running up my back and pulling me into his chest feel so intimate. When I’ve worn a man’s clothes in the past, it was usually after sex, so the sensation is giving the illusion that we’ve been long-time lovers.

Or maybe it’s that he shares his DNA with his brother, and almost everything about him feels the same. His mouth, his tongue, his hands. It’s no secret I’ve made love to brothers before this, but the similarities between Sonny and Ric were nothing to the identical siblings I’ve most recently fallen for. The only difference I can see between Tomas and Lorenzo is that Tomas seem a little bigger, a little denser...and has a pulse.

I can’t wait to feel his uniquely heavy weight on my body. My legs wrap around his waist, and I pull him in tighter. He checks my expression one more time to make sure I’m not going to run. He must like what he sees, because he smirks with dark intention, and his hands grab my ass and he grinds his cock against me. 

I squeal at the pleasurable friction, and he does it again and again as he kisses me like he’s starved for it. I want to feel his skin against mine, so I pull off his shirt and mine. Now we’re back where we started earlier this evening, except this time, there’s no way I can stop what we’re doing. 

Suddenly, I’m lifted off the couch with my legs still around him, and he’s carrying me to his bed. He drops me down, yanks off my shirt, and pulls off my pants. I’m completely exposed to him as he takes off his belt. My curiosity piques when he keeps his belt in his hand, yet removes the rest of his clothes.

A shot of adrenaline courses through my blood at the sight of such a broad, masculine man standing naked over me with a belt. I don’t forget about the belt when he crawls on top me kissing his way up to my lips. I’m wondering what kind of kink he has in store. It’s making me squirm in anticipation. 

He doesn’t make me wait long to find out. His arm wraps around my waist and he pulls my body up to the center of the bed. Then, as he kisses deep in my mouth, his hands find mine, and he raises them up to the top of the bed frame. 

“I promise you, sweetheart,” he growls dark and dangerous, “I will never let you get away again…”

He wraps the belt around my hands and a rod iron piece of the bed frame before he pulls it tight and buckles it into place. For a second I wonder if he truly means he’ll never let me go from this position, and fear shoots through me. Then, I look down and see his big, heavy cock, rock-hard and fully erect, and I just don’t care how long he keeps me here.

He kneels between my spread legs and closes his eyes. He takes a meditative-like deep breath before he opens them and assesses me naked and spread out at his mercy. His expression is all appreciation and a little bit of menace.

“Alexis…” he rumbles. His hands run up and down my curves like he’s a man coming home. His hands are naturally so familiar with my body, like he’s hitting all his favorite places on a well-traveled road map. Finally, he reaches his favorite destination at my sex. 

His fingers slide through my folds, coating themselves in my slick arousal. The pads of his fingers begin a titilating massage of my inner labia on either side of my sex. Why does that feel so fucking good? He moves to my clit, massaging from the little bud, all the way to pelvic bone, then back to my inner lips.

“I want you to do something for me Alexis…”

I’d be willing to do anything for him with his hand on me like that. “Anything…” Anything!

He smirks and licks his lips before he says, “Say my name.”

I’m good and worked up, so it takes me a second to process his request. It takes me a second further to remember who it is doing these beautiful things to me. Not Lorenzo. “Tomas.”

He purses his lips as he sticks his finger in my pussy, curling it around my pubic bone, lightly massaging my soft g-spot. God he knows his way around a woman’s body. 

“Now,” he takes a dramatic pause, “I want you to say my brother’s name.”

I narrow my eyes at him. What the hell is he getting at? Then he adds his thumb to my clit, and it doesn’t matter. “Lorenzo…”

“Say my name again.” He rubs.

“Tomas.”

“And my brother’s.” He pulls out and massages my lips, then pushes back in.

“Lorenzo!”

“See, Alexis, it doesn’t fucking matter what name you say. It doesn’t matter what you call me. What matters is this is what you want! This is what you crave, and God damn it, this is what I want to fucking give you.”

He’s working me with both hands now, and I’m about to come. 

I have no words, but he keeps on, “So when I make you lose your fucking mind tonight over and over and over again, don’t you dare run out on me. Just take whatever I give you by whatever name you want to call me. Because this is really just about your body and mine!”

A few more strokes, and I’m screaming beyond any fucking names! And I know he’s right...it doesn’t matter what I call him. I want this...I want him...and I don’t give a fuck why.


	5. Family of Strangers

Lorenzo

____________________________

The only thing more satisfying than watching Alexis fall apart, is knowing that I’m responsible for making it happen. Her eyes are unfocused and seeing nothing in the physical world. She’s lost in her head and in the sensations of her body. Her back arches, then her body curls in on itself as the muscles deep in her pussy squeeze my hand. 

My staff downstairs might’ve thought she was screaming in agony if they didn’t know how madly I adore her, how I’d never let any harm come to her. And they’ve heard her cries of mindless pleasure before in a place four thousand miles away.

I don’t wait for her body to settle or come down from it’s rush of hormones and adrenaline. I want her craving more of what only I can give her. And, yes, I truly believe I am the only one who can make her lose it like this. Only I have the face of the man she loves...Only I have his voice...his body...his mind. 

Kneeling in front of her, all I have to do is remove my fingers from her pretty, pink cunt, swollen and dripping from her climax, and her pelvis is lifting off the bed, begging me to give her more. I’d pull her down to my cock if I didn’t have her hands strapped to the bed frame, but since I left no room for her to move, I scoot further between her legs. 

My cock is in agony so close to Alexis without being inside, especially when she wants me so badly, when she’s spread wide open and begging for me. But I am a man that knows how to appreciate what’s in front of me. I’ve never been one to act on impulse...I plan...I strategize...I choose my path with great care, and I experience consequences in their full force. I savor the thrill of victory. I pay the penance of disappointment in defeat. And it’s no different with Alexis. 

I’ve planned this moment since I found out Jerome sent her those pictures of me on her cell phone. I’m surprised she didn’t realize I’d be monitoring the phone I gave her. But I knew what we had was over...that she wouldn’t believe me when I told her what really happened in Jersey. She’d just see the lie about Scout and condemn me to a life of hell without her. 

I didn’t expect her to keep playing me...I didn’t expect her to avoid confronting me. Did she think I’d hurt her? I could never...

I had to win her back. I accidentally won her the first time in spite of myself, and this time I’d planned it with far more intention. All my careful planning has finally paid off.

So, I’m not just going to ram my dick in her and hump her like a couple of dogs in heat. I’m with the woman I love for the first time in half a year. I want to FEEL her. I want to savor this. I want to pay attention every sensation, because damn it, this is what it was all for! My woman is back in my bed, naked and wanting, legs open, pussy spread for me to fuck her. 

I bring my cock, so hard and pulsing, to her dripping pussy. She moans at the slightest touch, still in the lingering throes of her orgasm. Her hot, wet cunt is just as I remember, and lights me on fire as I run the sensitive tip through her folds. Her arousal is slick and heavy, making my smooth head glide from her opening to her clit with no resistance. Her pussy lips cradle the length of my cock as I tease us both. It’s more than a tease, though. I want to feel her in every way I can. I want to take my time. I want to remember and not get lost in the mindless fuck of desperation I feel tugging at my feeble self-control. If I was a teenager, I’d already be done. I’d come here and now, bypassing the feeling of filling this pussy full of my cock and and cum.

But I’m not a teenager. And my need to be with her in every possible way reinforces my self-discipline. Her desperate little whimpers as she rocks her hips up to get me to fuck her are making that self-discipline all the harder to maintain. Her maddening desire for me is making this all the sweeter.

I run my cock down past her pussy to her ass. I want her body to remember I was there. She bucks up in response, and I know she wants it as bad as I do. I know she remembers what it felt like that day on the balcony. I will have her ass again one day, but right now...I want her cunt.

I line my cock up with her pussy, and she’s squirming in her restraints. God, she’s beautiful! Her chestnut hair is sticking to the side of her face where she’s perspiring. She’s sucking in air quick and shallow. Her eyes are gaining more awareness the longer I wait, and they’re trained on me with a dark depth, pleading with me to push inside her. 

I look her body over a moment longer. Her olive, Mediterranean skin is glowing, and by months of sheer will and determination to this one cause, it’s mine to touch, mine to love. I run my hands over her one more time before I stop them at her squirming hips. I consider letting her hands loose, but when we start fucking, her body might remember I’m Lorenzo like it seems to every time we’re close, and I can’t have her confused mind forcing her to run away again. Her body knows me, even if her mind won’t let her see the truth.

“Please…” she begs. 

I can’t deny her anything when she asks me like that. As my hands grip her body, thumbs over her hips, fingers digging into the cheeks of her ass, my hips press forward ever so slightly. The slick texture of her pussy is all heated pleasure, squeezing my dick, sucking me in. I pay attention and commit to feeling every sensation. The farther I push in, the tighter she gets, and it’s hard to tell if her cunt is pulling me in or kicking me out. Her legs are wrapped around me, trying to get leverage to speed up the process. 

I can tell my pace is excruciating for her. When we’ve fucked before, it was all hedonism and uncontrollable passion. After six months of waiting, I’m not going to hammer through this like a starved man who scarfs down a meal and doesn’t remember what he ate. I push in slow, driving her mad.

Finally, I’m all in! I grunt with enormous relief and an even greater building need. Her cunt is squeezing my cock with these needy little pulls.

“More!” she moans. “More, more, more.”

I pull out and push back in just to remember what it feels like to fuck her. Damn it’s so good. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of, everything I remember, and so much more!

I fuck into her again. And again. And again.

I’m gone now. I’m lost in her moans and her whimpers, and her hot pussy creaming all over my cock. My balls are smacking against her ass in the best fucking way. I have no more self-control. I’m just fucking. 

I need more. I lay on top of her as I fuck. Although, from here, I can no longer see her body, but I can feel every inch of it, and I can kiss her hot, needy mouth, and suck on her greedy little tongue. She rubs her body against mine, whispering little cries in my ears to fuck her harder, to give her more. I listen to every word, and give in to every demand.

I’m going to need her to come soon, because I don’t think I can control myself for long; I feel impending climax inching closer. A voice in my head is saying stop...slow down...but I just fucking can’t. I’m only nailing her harder and faster, as she demands more and more. 

“Oh, God!” she yells, “Lorenzo!” A scream of pleasure tears from her throat! Thank fucking God. Her climax squeezes my dick so hard and as I push in again, I’m exploding into her!

“FUCK!” 

My cum shoots off and I can’t keep pace. My face is in her wet hair, breathing her in. My arms are squeezing her so damn tight, keeping her here, never letting her go.

“Alexis,” I say, as the last of my cum fills her. She’s still contracting around my cock, though it’s getting softer, and slower. 

“I want to touch you,” she says squirming beneath me. “I want to hold you.”

I can’t deny her a damn thing.

I reach up and unlatch the belt. She pulls her hands free before I have a chance to make sure they’re ok, and she wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me in for a kiss.

“Mmmm,” I hum against her lips. She kisses thoroughly, holding my head, and taking my mouth until she’s good and full of me. 

My satisfied cock doesn’t want to leave her pussy. It feels too much like home.

She finally lets go of my lips, and she looks me dead in the eyes from only inches away. With my cock still in her pussy, coated in our mixed cum, this look feels so damn intimate. We’re stripped of all pretenses, and just pure, authentic feeling.

There’s such a dark intelligence in the eyes of Alexis Davis. A shallow mind loves easy and pure...in or out...all or nothing. Alexis Davis doesn’t not love with simplicity or ease. Her passion is so obviously painful. It’s complex and interwoven with meaning that’s only sometimes conscious for her. She’s so perceptive and intuitive, yet her mind is layered with a lifetime of trauma and fear, that she unconsciously finds innovative and sometimes absurd ways of protecting herself.

It’s like looking in a fucking mirror. Except I’ve been all in with her since the moment spent that first chaste night in bed with her all those months ago.

In her dark eyes, I can see I’ve made it past all her layers of protection to the deepest parts of her soul. She knows it’s me way down there. 

“I love you,” I say. “More than anything in this world, I love you.”

When the weight of the unconscious truth is too much for her to bear, she pulls my head back down and buries her face in my neck. I like how she breathes me in, how she squeezes me close. 

My cock falls out of her cunt, and she moans a little sound of loss. I can’t help but tell her again, this time whispered quietly in her ear, “I love you so much it hurts, baby.”

She stiffens beneath me, but then she strokes my hair as though trying to console me. “Tomas, I…” She’s struggling with trying not to break my heart, and it’s making her anxious. 

I put her at ease. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I know how deeply you feel...You don’t have to say anything. You’re just not certain if it’s for me or for him.” I smile internally that her feelings are really all mine.

“That doesn’t bother you?”

I pull back to look in her eyes. “No, it doesn’t. All that tells me is that I’m a man you can love, if you don’t already. I’d say that’s something to celebrate, not to weep and cry over.”

She looks to the side. “I said his name again...When…”

“I know,” I smile. I remember. I relish. “It’s fine. I told you it would be fine.” I kiss her cheek softly.

“I don’t get it,” she says. “If you said another woman’s name in bed with me...I’m not sure you’d survive.”

Her threats of death and violence aren’t exactly idle. “Would you be jealous, Ms. Davis?” I grin. 

She looks ashamed. I kiss her to show her there is no shame in loving me so possessively. “Don’t worry, Alexis. If it was any other man’s name, I’d probably hunt him down. I could never lay a hand on you except to make you feel good.”

“But you hated Lorenzo. I just don’t get how you can be ok with me saying his name.”

“I love you. That’s all that matters.”

She buries her face in my neck again. I prefer this type of avoidance to the running. 

I roll off her so I don’t suffocate her. Her body just curls right into mine as I move to my back. Her hand rests on my chest, running her fingers back and forth through my hair.

“Can I ask you a question?” she says, her tentative voice making me tense.

“Of course.” I kiss her forehead and run my hand up and down her back.

“Have you ever been married before? You seem to know everything about me, but I know next to nothing about you.”

I chuckle...she doesn’t know how wrong she is. “I was married to Sebastian’s mother for a time...and I was engaged to someone else before I left for Mexico.”

“Oh? You were engaged when you were kidnapped?”

“I was.”

Alexis looks up at me with worry in her eyes. “Don’t you want to see your fiance?”

I shrug, “Not particularly, and she’s hardly my fiance anymore. Lorenzo, as part of his sadism, let me know she moved on with her ex-husband shortly after I was imprisoned. Since I’ve come home, I learned she split up with him and moved on to several other people from there. I didn’t expect her to wait for me, and I’m certainly not in love with her anymore.”

“And what if she shows up on your doorstep tomorrow? You think you could just send her away?”

I laugh and I look at the most beautiful naked woman in my arms, “Without hesitation.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” I make sure my voice is firm so she believes me. “I’m in love with YOU, Alexis. I don’t want anything to do with anyone else.”

“How does your love for your fiance just go away?”

“I was held prisoner for YEARS. My fiance moved on with one of the biggest, most dangerous assholes I’ve ever known, and she left my son to fend for himself. I would never abandoned the children of the woman I love. If Molly or Scout ever needed anything, I hope you know you can count on me to make sure they’re taken care of.”

Alexis smiled sweetly. “Thank you. But, are you just angry with her moving on so quickly, or are you really over her?”

“My anger is only that she and my sister let my son get killed. I’m indifferent to who she shares her bed with anymore. She could fuck a whole fleet if she wants to. And knowing Blair, she probably has.”

“Oh God, Blair? Not Blair Cramer?”

“You’ve met her?” Oh shit…

“Just in passing. I told you that her ex-husband kidnapped my grandson and switched him with Téa’s stillborn baby?”

“Yes…Todd Fucking Manning. You remember I told my sister was in a relationship with a dangerous asshole…?”

“No way…” she’s flabbergasted. 

“Yep, after I was kidnapped, Blair went back to Todd. Not for long though. He fucked it up, she dumped him, then he ping-ponged back to my little sister.”

“Téa’s with Todd Manning now?”

“Yep. Sick, isn’t it? Apparently, she didn’t have enough of his lying, or his baby snatching, or whatever else he’s been up to since I left.”

Her face is scrunched up in disgust.

I use her aversion to Todd to my advantage. “Do you better understand my distaste for visiting my sister?”

Her face scrunches up, and I know she just thinks I’m pouting about Téa’s role in Sebastian’s death. 

Unfortunately, she’s undeterred about Blair. “Are you sure you don’t want to at least see Blair? What if the old feelings come up when you lay eyes on her?”

I laugh, “That’s a waste of time. I just don’t care about her anymore.”

“Tomas, come on…”

“I’m serious, Alexis. I care about you. So much of my affection for her was related to guilt I had for the misinformed role I played in Todd’s disappearance. I don’t know if you heard he was kidnapped by a rogue intelligence organization?”

Alexis shakes her head.

I continue, “I unwittingly helped them, and then spent years trying to fix things. Anyway, I had a picture of Blair that just stuck with me. I fantasized about her for years. I painted her. I created an idea of her...but Blair was a different person in reality. It was much easier to see with distance.” 

I stroke Alexis’s cheek with my thumb, “And then I met you...a woman who’d fly around the world and face death for the people she loves...an intellectual with priorities in the right place...a woman who balances light and darkness in the most perfect way...and woman who seems to have been crafted to my body and is tied to my destiny in the most shocking ways.”

Alexis laughs, “Destiny? A man who spent six years locked up believes in destiny?”

“We all need to find meaning in our suffering, or we’re subject to despair. I believe my destiny is a life with you and Lila, and I’ll use all my formidable resources to protect that destiny.”

“That sounds less like determinism, and more like WILL.”

“Only the mediocre surrender to dichotomies, Alexis. You and I are far above that.”

She knows I’m right; I can see it in her eyes. So, I don’t take offense when she says, “Alcazars seem to have as much inherent self-aggrandizement as Cassadines.”

“It’s not self-aggrandizement. It’s just stating facts. The reality is, we’re both far more intelligent and intuitive than most people, and we have an eye for the practical. It’s patronizing to suggest we’re working on the same intellectual level as the Sonny Corinthoses, Julian Jeromes, and Blair Cramers of the world.”

“You speak so ill of the dead?”

He shakes his head, “It’s not ill speak, there’s no judgment in my words. You’re projecting your own judgments.”

“You sound so much like my brother Stefan.”

“I take that as a compliment. From what I understand, Stefan was a brilliant man.” I smile at a few memorable interactions I had with her brother.

“And you sound like YOUR brother, too.”

“Which one?”

She pouts and looks away. “You know I mean Lorenzo.”

Of course I know. I just like hearing her say my name. To soothe her sad eyes, I pull up her chin and kiss her lovingly. 

As our bodies relax, it’s much easier to feel the chill taking over the house. I have to extricate myself from the happiest place in the world to move to the fire to add another couple of logs. As I restore the flame, Alexis gets out of bed, bringing a couple of pillows and the comforter with her. 

“Good idea,” I say. “It’ll be much warmer here.”

She makes a makeshift bed for us in front of the fireplace. “I don’t imagine you’d be able to check on Molly and Lila?”

“We might still have enough service to get messages through. Grab my phone over there, and we’ll see.”

After I make the last adjustments to the logs, she hands me my phone. I see several notifications, including Téa’s increasing worry about my unresponsiveness in the blizzard, which I ignore. The only messages that matter are one from Miguel saying they made sure the girls are warm, and have enough food and drink to make it safely through the night, and a message from Lila with a picture that makes me laugh out loud.

“What?” says Alexis.

I show her the picture. It’s a selfie of Molly and Lila making silly faces and holding glasses of wine by the fire. Alexis laughs in relief more than anything. 

“Maybe we should send one back of our evening’s escapades,” she teases.

“I’m sure Molly would be delighted, and not at all traumatized, to get a picture of her mother restrained to my bed wearing nothing but my belt around her wrists. Sounds like a great starting point to blending our families.”

Alexis shakes her head in disbelief as I type out a message to Molly and Lila to let them know Alexis is here and we’re both safe and well, not that young people worry about such things, even ones who’ve lost as much as they have.

Alexis is looking at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“What?” I ask.

“Blending our families?”

I smile. “Come on, Alexis. Neither of us are here for the short-term.”

“What happened to taking things at whatever pace I need them?”

“This is what you need.” I crawl to her on the blanket, making her lay down. I love this position of dominance over her. 

“You think you know what I need?” she says as she lays back.

Of course I do. But I just smile, no words needed.

She laughs as she says, “You are so arrogant.”

“I can prove it to you.”

“Oh?”

“Watch…” I kiss a trail down her chest and abdomen to my favorite place on her body.

“This isn’t fair. I have no chance of forming an opposing argument when you do that.”

“All is fair…” I place a hot, wet kiss to her clitoris.

“Is this love or war?” she murmurs, lifting her hips.

“Both. Always both.” I lick through the lips of her sex and absorb her flavor once again. Her taste is an orgasmic rush all on its own. She seems to like it, too, because she spreads her legs wide and pulls my head down harder against her cunt. “But today, more love than war.”

____________________________________

“¿Señor?”

I’m awoken by a hard knock on my bedroom door, and a pain in my back. 

“¿Que chingados es esto?” I mutter under my breath. Alexis is naked, cocooned in my arms, and fast asleep. That asshole is going to wake her up.

The knock sounds again. I’m going to have someone’s head. 

I do my best to gently lay my woman down on the pillow, and replace my body with another pillow behind her back. A poor substitute for what I can give her. The way she’s rustling around, I can’t imagine this is going to be too effective. When I hear the knock again, I stand up walk to the door. 

I grunt and massage out a pain in my back from sleeping on the floor. I have a slight degree of sympathy for Tomas, who I made sleep on the floor for months at a time. I make it to the door and open it to find Alonso.

“La Sra. Delgado está aquí.”

I roll my eyes to the ceiling. The fucking nerve of that woman coming uninvited. Tomas did say she was pushy. The pushy sort of lawyer that wouldn’t let up until she was satisfied. I better go talk to her, and find a way to get her to back down. She’s the biggest risk to my identity. 

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

Alonso acknowledges me with a nod and walks briskly away. I realize as I’m in the bathroom brushing my teeth, the power must’ve been restored at some point throughout the night. I don’t bother fixing my hair or finding decent clothes to wear. Tomas was a fucking slob, and Téa would be most familiar with his flighty sloppiness. I wear a black t-shirt, probably better fitting than Tomas would don, but I don’t have any other options, and a pair of sweats. 

As I descend the stairs, I can see into the sitting room where Téa is perched on the edge of the couch...and she’s not alone.

“Fucking Manning,” I mutter. Tomas and I hated the man for very different reasons, and thank God, because I don’t have to feign affection for the shitty man. He’s snooping through a desk I have in the back of the room, as though I’m stupid enough to leave anything important lying around.

When I walk into the room, Téa spots me and stands quickly. “Hermano.” She nearly runs over and hugs me. 

I naturally cringe and tense. I don’t like strangers touching me, and I don’t want this woman’s affection. I push away the thought that the reason for my aversion to her has more to do with me killing her nephew and being responsible for the death of her brother, and I hold onto the idea that my tension and aversion is that I am ‘Tomas,’ and she didn’t help my son.

When she realizes I’m not hugging her back, she pulls away awkwardly. She looks up into my eyes and scrutinizes me with heavy intrusivity. That’s far to intimate of a look from a woman I hardly know.

I look over at Manning to regain my cold composure when I say. “Why are you here?”

“I was worried about you, Tomas. You haven’t been answering my calls or responding to my messages.”

I look down my nose at her. “I told you I needed space. Space doesn’t mean we should be checking in regularly.”

“There was a massive snow storm last night. I was worried sick.”

I laugh coldly thinking of how she didn’t worry much about struggling, homeless Sebastian, picking guitar strings for pennies to save his pathetic father. “It’s a little late for your worry.”

“You don’t have to be an asshole to your sister,” says Todd. “She feels bad enough for what happened to the kid, you don’t need to lay it on any thicker.”

“The kid? Sebastian, you mean. My son. The only person in the world that cared about my disappearance. The only one who fought for my freedom. The one you all neglected when he begged for your help.”

I hear Téa sniff in front of me. She really does seem torn up about it. If I didn’t have a facade to keep up, I might try to ease her discomfort, but Tomas warned me that Téa wasn’t a woman who’d be satisfied with a periodic text messaging relationship. If I didn’t put up boundaries with her, she’d push into every part of my life until she uncovered the truth.

A truth that would get her killed.

So I let her cry. “As you can see I’m fine, and I’m actually busy this morning. If you need an escort home through the snow, Alonso can make arrangements.”

“You can’t kick us out already,” says Todd. “I can smell the bacon coming from the kitchens, and Téa didn’t let us stop for breakfast. We deserve at least a meal for our trouble.”

“Trouble you brought on yourself. I’ll have the food brought out to you. You can eat and leave.”

I turn to go back upstairs and hope Alexis sleeps through this unpleasantness and doesn’t have to face Manning.

“Hermano, wait,” Téa pleads, tears are falling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I thought Baz was on drugs! You know the kind of lifestyle musicians lead. And he was always so oppositional. Then he tells me he was running drugs for a cartel. The CIA assured us you were dead. I truly thought he was trying to get us to finance another drug run or a bad habit.”

“I was locked in a cell for six years! Sebastian was homeless, starving, and begging for pesos to get me free!” I can’t believe I’m almost feeling truly indignant for my brother. 

“Tomas, I’m sorry,” she cries harder, tears uncontrollable now.

“Get over yourself Delgado,” says Manning. “She didn’t know.”

“And she didn’t care to find out. I’m sure you didn’t encourage Téa or Blair to come find me, either.”

Todd smirks, “Sucks to lose years of your life to a twin you didn’t know you had, huh Delgado?”

I keep a straight face, utterly amused at Tomas’s role in Todd’s imprisonment years before. Todd must’ve thoroughly enjoyed the idea of Tomas getting his due. If Todd knew I was Lorenzo, he’d probably be shaking my hand right now. Not that I would allow it...not after what he did to Alexis and her family.

I look to Téa, “You thought it was a good idea to bring him here? You know what he did to people I care about in this town. You know what he did to Sam McCall’s baby...You know better than anyone.”

Téa looks ashamed of herself. “He wouldn’t let me drive through the storm alone, and I had to make sure you were ok.”

“I’d like him to leave now. Out of respect for Sam’s mother, he should never come here again.”

“Sam’s mother? What does she have to do with anything?” said Todd.

A sharp voice speaks from behind me, “He didn’t care how his behavior affected me before, Tomas. Why the hell would he start considering me now?”

I turn to find a vision of a woman walking into the room. There is nothing sexier than a well-fucked woman wearing her man’s clothes. She’s got on one of my robes. This one is unfortunately terry cloth, but visions of her sexy legs peeking out of black satin in Mexico flash through my mind.

I forget about the people behind me and go to Alexis cradling her face in my hands. “Good morning.” I kiss her softly.

“Good morning. What’s going on?”

“Téa says she was worried.” I pull Alexis into my side as we turn back to the other guests in the room. 

“Hello, Alexis,” says Téa. She’s wiping the tears from her cheeks and trying to put on a smile. “I’m sorry for waking you and stealing Tomas away. I just didn’t hear from him in the blizzard and wanted to make sure he was ok.”

“I don’t mind YOU stopping by, at all.” Alexis’s eyes turned cold and dark on Todd. No one knows better than me what happens to a man who steals one of her grandchildren. For a moment, I’m concerned for Todd’s livelihood. Then I realize I don’t particularly care, and would happily dispatch the man if Alexis asked me to.”

“Well, this is awkward,” says Todd. “On second thought, Delgado, I think I’ll take my breakfast to go.”

Téa walks towards us, and I can see her eyes are on Alexis and not me. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to Danny. You have no idea.”

“Oh,” says Alexis coldly, “I’m sure I have some idea.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”

Alexis shakes her head, “No I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to ever have to face Danny’s kidnapper again, and with the more recent kidnapping of my other grandchild, I’m a little edgy.”

“I didn’t realize you’d be here, Alexis. I figured that Tomas and Todd would be able to tolerate each other now that Blair isn’t between them anymore.”

“Speaking of…” says Todd. “I think it’s a little weird you haven’t even tried to contact Blair since you’ve found daylight. She was expecting some sort of acknowledgment from you. A returned phone call. Text. Carrier pigeon.”

I sigh deeply, trying to reign in my homicidal impulses. “As you can see, I’ve been a little busy with the only two people still alive who gave a shit about me while I was imprisoned. I’ll have you and Blair know that Alexis actually tried to help Sebastian, who, at the time, was a complete stranger to him.”

“You’ve really turned into a self-righteous dick,” said Todd. “Téa grieved your death six years ago, and now you’re beating her up for doing the best she could.”

“No, Todd,” I rumble dangerously, “you are nothing close to the best my sister can do. Now, you’re upsetting Alexis. I’m asking you one last time to leave my home. I assure you, my associate Alonso,” I turn to point to my guard in the corner of the room, “will not allow you to be here long enough for me to ask you to leave an additional time.”

Téa shakes her head and looks up at me with narrowed eyes, “What happened to you over there, hermano? You’re different.”

“Ask Todd what years of imprisonment will do to a man.”

“Could you at least respond to one of my messages every now and then. Please let me know you’re alright?”

“I asked you for space, pájaro. That means that sometimes I won’t answer. You’ll have to find a way to deal with that.”

Tears fill Téa’s eyes once again, and Alexis steps forward to grab her arm. She looks back at me with a heartbroken glance before telling Tomas’s sister, “Message me, Téa. If you can’t get in touch with him, I’ll let you know how he’s doing. I’ll send you my number later today.”

I grumble at the thought of Alexis and Téa forming a relationship. 

“Thank you,” Téa says.

“That’s unnecessary,” I interject. “I’ll let you know I’m fine.”

Téa gives a big hug to Alexis. I can see Alexis is taken aback by her Puerto Rican affection. I’m guessing the Cassadines, much like the Alcazars, weren’t big huggers to near strangers. Téa then turns her affection on me and hugs me again. Since Alexis is watching this time, I put a hand on the back of Téa’s head and kiss her temple. “Adiós pájaro. Dios te bendiga.”

Téa shudders against me, and I know she’s trying so hard to hold herself together. Finally, she pulls away. Todd is staring quietly at me with a snarling look on his face. He reminds me of a female Carly with that expression. It does nothing to endear him to me.

With a look from me, Alonso comes to Todd’s side and makes it clear it’s time to leave. Téa waves to Alexis and me on her way out the door. I rub my face in exasperation when we’re finally alone again.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know she was bringing him here.”

“It’s fine. I’m glad you got to see your sister.”

I shake my head and wrap her in my arms, “This wasn’t how I wanted to wake up together this morning.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she smiles. “We have a lifetime of mornings to get it right.”

Her allusion to the permanence of our relationship is soothing to the tensest parts of my soul. 

“Now, do I smell bacon?” she asks.

I nod, “I think so, but that’s the second course to breakfast.”

“Oh? What’s the first?”

I smile devilishly, “You.” 

I bend down to lift her up, and she squeals, wrapping her legs around me. Now that Todd and Téa are gone, I can focus on problems I actually give a shit about...like which surface of furniture I plan on devouring my woman this morning.


	6. Reasonable Doubt

Alexis

____________________________

I’m probably the only person in the world who’d ever call me stupid. On Helena’s worst day, it wouldn’t cross her mind to make such an assertion, because it’s such an obvious untruth, she wouldn’t waste her time. So why do I keep calling myself such a nasty name? And all the other names that go with it: senseless, dim-witted, blind, thick-headed, foolish, idiotic, etc. 

And worse yet, why do I keep believing it? 

I know exactly why…

A sick thought has been stewing in my head all day. It planted in my brain when Tomas was giving me what was probably the best oral sex of my life…

What if the man I’m falling in love with is really the man I’ve already loved and hated with more ferocity than anyone before? I’ve been beating myself up for projecting my love for Lorenzo onto Tomas, but what if my projections aren’t the problem? What if they’re just instincts?

I’m crazy about Tomas...IF he’s actually Tomas. But what if he’s not? I’m sleeping with a man I don’t really know. 

But that’s crazy, right? He can’t be Lorenzo. I killed him myself. Lorenzo is dead. 

Half of the thoughts racing through my head have me questioning the identity of Tomas and my reality for the past six months, while the other thoughts are affirming the fact that Tomas is my guy and Lorenzo has long been food for the fishes.

Why did I give in and sleep with someone I’m so uncertain of? Why did I practically beg him for it?

Well, I didn’t actually believe he could be Lorenzo until I shared his bed. Then, all the possibilities of alternate realities began filtering through my brain. 

Part of me is screaming, it’s HIM! It’s Lorenzo! He feels like Lorenzo. He sounds like him with that deep, raspy voice that softens so sweet and playful when he’s teasing. He walks like Lorenzo, pure panty-dropping confidence with every stride. And his posture, even completely relaxed is straight-backed with haughty superiority, just like Lo. 

Then, there’s the way he thinks. His obsessive nature turned full force onto me. He’s demanding like Lorenzo. Tomas was flirtatious and jovial, even in his grief. Tomas was easy to be around. Lorenzo commands attention without saying a word. The only way to be relaxed around Lo is when he’s fucked me to near unconsciousness. Otherwise, I’m impassioned, wanting, needy, or wary.

He smells like Lo. He FUCKS like him, too. He knew my body the moment we stepped into the elevator. Knew just what buttons to push. He knows how to touch me, how to kiss me, how to please me. And I know how to please him. There was no learning curve this time...we already knew, and when he had me on that kitchen table this morning, I was entirely certain it was Lorenzo’s mouth on me. 

So, after all these fears and insecurities began rising up, why did I let him take me home and waltz through my front door? Why am I watching him with his hands on his hips surveying my living room?

Because there are differences between him and Lorenzo, too. He has that tattoo on his arm, he’s physically bigger, and he knows things I only told Tomas when we were in Mexico.

Yes, my doubts tell me these are all things that can be faked. He could’ve just gotten a matching tattoo. He could’ve changed his diet and his work-out plan to grow denser muscles. And Tomas could’ve shared our secrets with Lorenzo under threat of harm to someone he loved.

But if the man who spent the last twenty-four hours between my legs is actually Lorenzo, why would he fake being Tomas? To have me? Impossible. Laughable. Lorenzo was far too narcissistic to pretend to be someone so far beneath him, which he most certainly believed Tomas to be. I think this is the single greatest truth I know, and the most significant reason I can’t believe he’s Lorenzo. 

Also, I didn’t know Tomas very well in Mexico. My understanding of “Tomas’s” identity was based off a handful of tense and stressful interactions. I only saw him when he was adjusting to daylight after been starved of human contact for weeks...months...years. During those brief interactions, he was taking care of me as much as I was taking care of him, which would explain the ease of his demeanor trying to settle my fears. A few hot showers, and some decent meals might truly change a person. Maybe he was always more like Lorenzo than I thought. They did share the same DNA, after all. Genetics could make them walk and talk like the same person. Their bodies might even have an affinity for the same things, and attraction to the same kind of woman. They might even have predispositions to think the same way...I know a little about hard-wiring and how prefrontal-cortexes work.

He just can’t be Lorenzo...I’m not the only one who would notice. Nikolas knew Tomas better than anyone over the last few years. Tomas and Nikolas are doing business together now, and they spend plenty of time together. My nephew is bright and intuitive...he’d know.

Then, there’s Téa. She’d know if her brother wasn’t her brother.

And Blair? Maybe she could she tell? Carly’s dead, which makes her as helpful as she’s ever been. Would Skye know? No, I’d rather shoot myself in the face than ask Skye for anything.

If I’m being honest with myself, one of the most significant reasons I refuse to accept that he’s Lorenzo is that it would mean I shot Tomas...that I killed my friend. And it would mean that I once again slept with the man who killed my daughters and Danny. I can’t accept that.

That would be beyond stupid.

So here is the ultimate question of my idiocy: am I so foolish that I’m sleeping with the man who already deceived me into bed once before, or am I such an idiot that I can’t accept the reality that a good man can come into my life and give me everything I could possibly need? Either way, something is fundamentally wrong with me.

“This place suits you,” he says in the middle of my living room.

“How so?” I watch his every move, no longer comparing him to Lorenzo, but looking for differences...hoping for them...wishing for them.

“It’s not dark like Wydemere, but it’s not light like the villa. The wood and stone ground the place. The way you’ve decorated makes it comfortable, warm. It’s you.”

“I wish I could take credit.” I look around my home for the last four years. “Julian built it for me. I haven’t done much to it since.”

His smile stays on his lips, but it leaves his eyes. He hates when I talk about Julian. “Well, he certainly knew you well.”

“Yeah,” I look around my home and force myself not to get emotional about Julian - not now anyway, “he did.”

Tomas’s phone starts ringing, and it’s a welcome distraction. He pulls it out and checks the ID. He bites his cheek and chews it a moment before he says, “It’s Téa.”

I laugh at her persistence. If someone in my family had asked me for space, it would be at least a week before I tried to call them. Téa couldn’t wait for the end of the day. “Are you going to answer?”

“If I don’t, she’ll probably reach out to you.” He pushes a button and brings the phone to his ear, “Hola, pájaro. ¿Que necesitas?”

I listen for a moment, and though I don’t understand what he’s saying, I notice his Spanish is a little different than what he speaks to his guards. It’s seems more imprecise...like he’s leaving syllables out of his words and his voice is more rhythmical.

He hangs up and looks at me with a raised eyebrow. “What’s that look?” he says.

“You sound different when you talk to your sister.”

“Different?”

“Your Spanish. It seems...more relaxed. Breathy even.”

He narrows his eyes at me, “You can hear that?”

“I have no idea what you’re saying, but I can hear a change.”

“Puerto Rican Spanish is a little different than the Mexican and Venezuelan Spanish you’re more accustomed to hearing. I guess it’s easy to fall back into old patterns when talking to someone from my childhood.”

This is another one of those differences between Tomas and Lorenzo that’s so comforting to my confused heart. I just can’t see Lorenzo changing his accent for anyone. I’ve been taking these differences as confirmations of Tomas’s identity...whether that’s smart or not, I don’t know, but the alternative is too terrifying to consider when all I want to do is make love to this man.

“You like me talking to Téa, don’t you? Why is that?” he asks.

I grab his hand and pull him down to sit on the over-sized chair. Momentarily confident yet again that he’s really Tomas, I sit across his lap. I like the way his arms curl around me, securing me on top of him. 

“I know how much you love her,” I say. “You’re hurting since you lost Baz, and since you can’t hold Lorenzo accountable, you’re displacing your anger on your sister. I just want you to be happy, Tomas. And your family makes you happy.”

He smirks down at me, “Even if it means uninvited morning visitors?”

“As long as I don’t have to spend too much time with Todd Manning, then we’ll deal with it.”

“I made it clear to Téa how we feel about Todd coming around. She seems to understand.”

I bring my lips to his cheek, a second day of unshaved scruff softly stimulating my sensitive skin. I hum in pleased contentment. His hands are moving up my thigh under yesterday’s dress, carefully laundered by Tomas’s staff. Someone even fixed the clasp Tomas broke.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You’re welcome, but it’s as much for me as for you. I don’t need Todd Manning in my life.”

My teeth gently catch the skin on his jaw. A low groan sounds from his throat, and I can feel his cock pressing against me from underneath. 

“If not Todd, what do you need in your life?” I whisper.

His bearded cheek scratches against my face as his eyes turn to meet mine. Our lips are grazing against each other when he says, “This...You. You’re all I need, Alexis.”

And he’s kissing me. His lips are a smooth contrast from his incoming beard. He licks into my mouth with his slick, wet tongue, and I’m so distracted by his oral attentions, I don’t even notice his hand inching up my dress until he’s pressing it between the apex of my thighs. My legs spread as far as this position will allow, knowing it’s in my body’s best interest to give access to whatever parts he wants.

His fingers glide through my pussy, strumming my sex like a musical instrument. He’s so damn good at this, at reading my body, knowing just what I need and exactly how I need it. 

THIS is what makes me doubt he’s ‘Tomas.’ How could he know me like this after just one night together? Lorenzo learned my body, fucking it over and over and over again. He teased me, explored me for days on end. His hands, his mouth, his cock over every inch of me. 

For a moment, when I’m coming on his fingers, I don’t care who he is. I don’t even remember why I’m supposed to hate one of them. And still, I don’t care after he strips me down and makes love to me on my couch. And I care least of all when orgasm tears through me again, and his vivid blues are watching me lose it with their heated fervency. 

It’s not until we’re both sated from orgasm, and I’m cuddled against his chest, that I begin to consider how fucked up this makes me. My conflicted soul flip flops back and forth, trying desperately to find that definitive difference between the two men that would ease my greatest fear.

As I lay in his arms coming down from a full twenty-four hours of bliss, I realize I can’t allow myself to figure this out on my own. I couldn’t figure out Lorenzo’s lies in Mexico without the help of Julian, and if there is even the slightest possibility this is Lorenzo again, I don’t think I should even try…

I need to talk to Téa.

It doesn’t take much convincing to get Tomas to have his men get us some take out. While he’s talking to Alonso, I go upstairs and quickly google the number to his sister’s answering service. I leave her my number and ask her to text me when she gets a chance. Within fifteen minutes she messages me back and we arrange a meeting for tomorrow.

I don’t like keeping secrets from Tomas, and my hope is that he’ll be his usual understanding self when he finds out the truth. I just need confirmation from someone who knows him. It’s strange that my months of manipulating Lorenzo have made this little inauthenticity easier for me to engage in than what may have been the case before.

I have dinner with Tomas as though I have no doubts. I make love to him, I talk to him, I laugh with him. I don’t know who I’m trying to fool...him or me.

In the morning, I pretend like I’m going to work, but instead, I jump on a plane for a quick flight to Llanview. Thankfully, the skies are clear the whole way, and it’s a quick trip. From the airport, I take a cab to a little restaurant in Angel’s Square called The Buenos Dias Cafe. 

Right before I walk into the restaurant, I get a text from Tomas, and a pang of guilt shoots through me. It reads, “My place or yours tonight? Nikolas is going to stop by for a minute to talk business.”

I don’t have anything at his house, and don’t really feel like doing any more running around than I’m already doing today. “My place, if that’s ok.”

“It’s perfect. See you later, sweetheart.”

I put my phone away, and try to push away the shame of secrecy. A familiar face is giving me a halfhearted smile as I walk through the door. 

“Alexis…” says Téa, coming from a booth to greet me.

“Hello.” 

Téa gives me another of her presumptuous hugs. Téa doesn’t half hug either; it’s a full on bear hug, squeezing me tight, as though I’m the last link to her family.

“You must be hungry,” she says. “I know this isn’t the fanciest place, but it really does have the best food in town. And Tomas just loves the flan.”

She leads me to her table with great care, almost like I’m a skittish pet that might run off at any point. I can see how much my reaching out means to her. 

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” I say stiffly and in my best lawyer voice. I’m struggling with her intense level of familiarity. I know it would be smarter to take advantage of it rather than put up boundaries, but my upbringing on an isolated island instilled a wariness of strangers, which is exactly what she is to me. 

“It must be important if you flew all this way rather than just giving me a call.”

I laugh thinking about having this conversation over the phone. How cruel that would be.

“Look, Alexis, if this is about Todd, Tomas made it clear how you feel about him, and I don’t blame you. Not at all. I’m sure you have questions about how I can let such a man back into my life after the lies he told me, but he is Dani’s father, and we have such a complicated history of…”

“Téa…” I reach out and grasp her hand. “I’m not here about Todd. I’m here about Tomas.”

“Oh?” She narrows her eyes and reads my serious expression. “Is he ok?”

I sigh deeply still trying to figure out how to start this conversation. 

“Alexis?”

“I think he’s fine...it’s just…”

I have her good and worried now. She looks like it’s taking all her restraint not to grab me and shake the information out of me. 

“I’m sorry. I just...I’m trying not to worry you. I’m actually here more for your reassurance than anything. I just don’t know how to ask the questions I need to ask.”

“I can handle anything you have to say, Alexis. Anything.”

So she thinks…

“Ok,” I start. “Do you know much about what happened in Mexico to Tomas? To me? How we met?”

She shakes her head. “No. He just said you were both held captive by Lorenzo Alcazar, and you became friends. I didn’t even realize you were seeing each other until we disrupted your morning.”

“We only recently started seeing each other. We did develop a friendship in Mexico. Your brother was helping me manipulate Lorenzo into getting my granddaughter back to her parents. Lorenzo was lying to me about his role in kidnapping her, about his role in the death of my family, and I was seducing Lorenzo into giving me his help.” I laugh in embarrassment and shame over the next words that come out of my mouth. “I, disgustingly and inevitably, fell in love with him. It wasn’t until just before Lorenzo died that I found out the truth of his deception.”

Téa’s face is mercifully without judgment. She reaches across the table and grasps my hand in comfort. Maybe her familiarity isn’t such a terrible thing. I press on.

“When the dust settled and Tomas moved to Port Charles with Lila, we continued our friendship. He made it clear almost immediately that he intended to be more than my friend.”

“That couldn’t have been easy...Tomas said Alcazar looked identical to him.”

“You have no idea. They even gave each other matching scars on their faces…”

We’re interrupted by a waitress who brings us water and takes our order. I use the break to breathe deep and gather myself. As the waitress walks away, Téa grabs my hand again and encourages me to continue.

“While we were in Mexico, Tomas flirted with me a little, but it seemed benign, almost like he was just trying to lighten the mood. He was sweet, comforting, practical, light-hearted. Even when Baz was killed, he was so kind to me, took care of me as best as he could, given the circumstances.”

“That sounds like my brother.” She smiles sweetly, and I can see her lost in memories of times past.

“I was just so enamored with Lorenzo, and Tomas was so certain he wouldn’t make it out alive, that we never even considered attempting some sort of romantic entanglement. Then, Tomas shows up here, and is intensely determined to be with me.”

Téa smiles. “For most of my life, I thought my brother an accomplished painter and musician. Then, eight or nine years ago, I found out he was really a covert government agent the whole time. His sweet, pleasant, and sometimes erratic demeanor is often a show. He’s really quite steady and shockingly calculating.” 

A wave of relief washes through me at her words. “That’s really good to hear. It was strange for me seeing such a different side to him when he came to Port Charles. I put up some distance between the two of us because he reminded me too much of Lorenzo...not just his looks, but his presence, his intensity.”

“Clearly, that distance melted away.”

I rub my temples as I go on, “Tomas wouldn’t have it any other way. He knows I’m struggling with grief from the loss of too many people in the last year, he knows I sometimes blur the lines between loving him and loving Lorenzo, but he is relentless in his pursuit. And, Téa, I’m just as enamored with him as I was with Lorenzo.”

Téa’s jaw is tense. I don’t think she likes the idea of me blurring those lines. Now, that is a response that seems reasonable to me.

“So, why are you here, Alexis?”

I swallow hard. “The last two nights were the first I’ve spent with Tomas…” I feel a rush of emotion behind my eyes. I press on before tears fall. “It...it’s very...familiar. So familiar, in fact, that I’m questioning...I…” I’m stuck. I can’t find the words, but Téa seems to fill in the blanks by the shocked expression on her face.

“You’re uncertain it’s Tomas?”

I nod. “When we’re not being romantic, I can see differences between the men, but when we’re close...I don’t know if it’s in their DNA to be so similar, or if...if..”

“Or, if my brother is the one who actually died.”

A stone cold expression has taken over her face. I know the expression isn’t for me, because she’s gripping my hand so tight, and her eyes are lost in some internal world. I imagine she’s running through all her memories of her brother since his release, looking for hints, clues, confirmations.

“I need you to tell me he’s Tomas.” I can’t help the crack in my voice, the anxiety and desperation seeping through. “I need you to tell me, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that I’m not being deceived by the man who killed my daughters yet again.”

“Alexis...I…”

We’re interrupted by the arrival of our food. I seem to have lost my appetite. 

“Gracias, Carlotta,” says Téa.

When Carlotta leaves, I’m the one grabbing Téa’s hand this time and asking, “Tell me you know it’s him.”

Téa closes her eyes and is shaking her head. “I’m just processing this, Alexis. I thought it was him. I mean, I think it’s him. He looks like him. He feels like him. He sounds like him.”

“I know all that.”

Téa nods, “You’re right.” She closes her eyes and considers a moment longer...“He knows things...things only Tomas would know...Old stories, little inside jokes. Nicknames. Endearments.”

She looks up at me…“But...he’s...different to me. He’s...cold. Tomas has been a lot of things, but never cold. I’ve been assuming it was because being imprisoned changed him. That he’s so angry with me for not helping Baz...”

“He was warm in Mexico...caring,” I say. “I never experienced Tomas as cold either. Lorenzo could be ice cold. Freezing. He was like that until he started to care...then he thawed.”

Téa looks worried. “He knows things, Alexis…” I can tell she’s trying to convince herself as much as me, because both she and I know that Tomas could’ve told Lorenzo anything if he was worried about Téa and Dani.

“It’s probably, Tomas,” I say. “I’m almost certain he is...I just need to find a way to...to…”

“Holy shit,” says a taunting voice behind me. “You don’t know if you sleeping with Tomas or Alcazar? That’s messed up.”

“Oh my God!” says Téa. “Todd, what are you doing here?”

I turn to find Todd Manning standing behind me with a familiar blonde. Blair Cramer. Todd was bad enough, now there’s Tomas’s ex-fiance.

“Blair and I are having lunch to talk about Jack. I did NOT follow you.” He’s holding up his hands in surrender to his wife and shaking his head in denial. “You didn’t say where you were meeting this woman. I thought you’d meet her at your office. You can’t blame me for this one.”

“Shut up, Todd,” says Blair. She looks at me and reaches out a hand, “Hello, Alexis.”

I try not to allow myself any hesitation before I accept her handshake. She’s looking me up and down, assessing me as a rival, keeping my hand in hers a moment too long. 

“Hello, Blair.”

“I heard about what happened to you in Mexico. I’m sorry you had to endure that ordeal.”

She has no idea. “Thank you.”

Blair puts her hand on her chest in a distinctly Southern manner and says, “Did we hear right? Are you questioning Tomas’s identity?”

“No, of course not.”

Blair pushes into the booth next to Téa. Todd is about to sit next to me, but I give a look that lets him know he better not even try to sit by me. He raises up his hands awkwardly, then points to a chair, “I’ll just…” He grabs the chair and pulls it up to the booth. 

“We heard you say you weren’t certain,” says Blair. “You know, Alexis, not to undermine your relationship with Tomas, but I’ve been truly surprised he hasn’t come to see me. He’s refused to take any of my calls.”

“He’s angry with you. He blames you all for his son’s neglect and eventual death.”

“But Tomas wouldn’t leave things undone like this. He’d want closure as much as I do. It makes sense that he might not actually be Tomas. I mean,” Blair points to Todd, “it’s not like we haven’t been duped before.”

“The situation is hardly the same as with Todd and Victor,” says Téa.

“Sounds pretty similar to me,” says Todd. “I should know.”

“I think I should make a trip to Port Charles and visit him,” says Blair. “Let’s face it, there are things I know about the old Tomas Delgado that no one else here could possibly know.”

Téa narrows her eyes at Blair and says, “Don’t even think about pulling THAT stunt again.”

Blair shrugs as though completely unaffected. I stifle my curiosity for the moment. I’m not interested in Blair Cramer’s games.

“You can take his prints, you know,” says Todd. “He’s been booked before. Alcazar has obviously been arrested at some point, too. Even the slightest variation in their prints will come up.”

“That won’t be necessary…” I say.

“But it would be effective,” says Téa. “We could have Bo run the prints here, so Tomas wouldn’t know until it was over.”

“If your guy really is Tomas,” says Blair, “he’d understand your concern better than anyone since he was knee deep in Todd’s swap with Victor.”

“And if he’s not Delgado,” says Todd with an antagonistic smirk, “then you’re probably going to want to take a long, hot shower.”

I shake my head and grab my purse. I reach in for enough cash to cover the bill though I’ve yet to eat anything. My already diminished appetite is now nonexistent. It was one thing to talk to Tomas’s sister about my concerns, but with the intrusive peanut gallery, this is suddenly feeling very dirty. 

“Please come visit whenever you like, Téa. You and Daniella are always welcome.” I leave without further acknowledgement of the other two at the table.

__________________________________

I go straight home when I get back to Port Charles. I take that long, hot shower Manning suggested, but it has nothing to do with Tomas, and everything to do with washing the Llanview off me. 

I’m actually eager to see Tomas; Téa was more reassuring than not. I just didn’t realize then because of my vulnerability to Todd and Blair. A sister would know if her brother was faking their inside jokes. Not even Lorenzo could be THAT good.

The look in Blair’s eyes...it was almost like she was challenging me. I’m annoyed, and, honestly, feeling a little territorial. Tomas better get here soon so I can lay my claim to him. 

Jesus. Now who’s the one sounding like Lorenzo?

I don’t bother with clothes; he hasn’t shown himself to be overly concerned with keeping them intact when he removes them. He’s more of a ‘deal with the fallout’ kind of guy when it comes to my apparel. A robe is a much safer bet.

I bound downstairs when I hear the doorbell ring. My relief at seeing Tomas is put on hold...I forgot Nikolas was coming over. I should’ve gone for more than just a robe.

“Hello,” I say cheerfully as I open the door. Even though it’s not Tomas, there were a number of years I thought I’d never be able to open the door to my nephew again, so I’m still delighted, even if my other...needs...are yet to be satisfied.

“Hello, Aunt.” My nephew’s hugs have gotten better since Mexico. He holds on a little bit tighter for a little bit longer...or maybe that’s just me to him.

When I let him go, he has a smirk on his face. “What?”

“Oh, I’m amused to be meeting Tomas here. Not surprised, but amused.”

“Not surprised, huh?” I pull my nephew into the house and invite him to sit on the couch. He’s got a large envelope in his hand that he tosses on the coffee table, clearly meant to be the ‘business’ he’s here to talk to Tomas about. 

I pull my robe tight around me and join him.

“No, I’m not surprised. Tomas is a...tenacious man. When he told me he fell in love with you in Mexico, I couldn’t imagine it would take much time for him to win you over. The two of you seemed like a good fit.” 

“Tenacious? Really?”

“Haven’t you experienced him as such?”

“I have more recently, but I’ve never heard anyone else do so before.” And it’s a comforting thing to know Nikolas experienced him that way, too.

Nikolas laughed. “He never let up while we were imprisoned. He kept trying to escape over and over. He inspired me to try a couple of times, myself.” Nikolas cringes remembering the consequences he received for trying to escape.

“Is Tomas similar to how you knew him in Mexico? Has he changed much?”

“He’s the same. If he changed at all, my guess is it would’ve been during his imprisonment, and we were together so long, I wouldn’t have noticed any major shifts. Why?”

I shrug, “Tomas is just very different as a lover than a friend, as I’m learning.”

Nikolas laughs, “I’ve never known him as a lover, so I can’t imagine I’d see the same differences as you.”

I roll my eyes, “I was just wondering if the change was more global to his personality, or if it was specific to me.”

“I think it’s specific to you.” He narrows his eyes at me, “Good changes, or bad?”

I have no hesitation, “Good changes. Obviously appealing changes, since you’re meeting him here with me, instead of alone at his house.”

“How has he changed?”

“He’s just...he’s intensely passionate. And there are other things…” For some reason, with all the reassurances I’m getting from Nikolas, it’s hard to even think about those other doubts. Then, I realize, it’s the similarities to Lorenzo that have me spooked, not the differences.

And there SHOULD be similarities in men who shared DNA. I’m probably just overthinking everything...as usual.

Nikolas laughs, “Tomas has always been intensely passionate. Just because he was a government operative, doesn’t mean he wasn’t really an artist. And if you’ve ever seen his old artwork, you’d know it was created with a fierce amount of passion.”

“You’ve seen his work?”

“I own several pieces. He’s damn good.”

There’s another knock on the door, and this time, I can see it’s Tomas through the blinds. I know I’m moving with a bounce in my step to see him. This tour through his pre-Lorenzo past is just what I needed. He’s no longer desirable to me just because of his similarities to Lorenzo, but I’m starting to really appreciate him in his own right. He’s a deep, layered person, with his own unique history, and a future I get to be a part of.

I open the door in my robe, and I’m not quite so self-conscious about pulling it tight around me as I was with my nephew. Tomas is leaning against the frame and eyeing my appearance with a devilish smirk. He’s carrying a plastic bag of take-out, already learning not to expect any culinary attention from me. 

“Hello,” I say, no less affected by him in business attire. He’s not wearing a tie, but he does have on a suit, which is a tragically rare sight for Tomas Delgado’s body.

“Hello, Alexis.” He doesn’t wait for an invitation. He just steps forward, pulls me close, and kisses me so intimately, I’m not certain he noticed Nikolas’s car in the drive. 

I pull away and nod over my shoulder to make him aware of my nephew. His lack of shame or surprise tells me he knew Nikolas was here, he just didn’t care about an audience. He kisses me again for good measure before moving past me to Nikolas.

“Hey, brother,” he says, holding out a hand to my nephew. 

Nikolas grabs Tomas’s extended hand, pulling him in for a masculine one-armed hug. “Thanks for taking a look and these proposals for me, man.”

“Of course.”

“Proposals?” I say, taking the bag of food from Tomas’s hand, pleasantly surprised by their camaraderie.

Nikolas’s jaw tenses before he starts talking. I know he’s being cautious about what to tell me. I wonder if it’s legal. “Cassadine Industries has spent decades woefully neglecting Latin American markets, much to my detriment over the last few years. I’ve decided it would be in our best interests to expand resources and connections to that part of the world.”

I turn to Tomas, “And you’re considering investing with him?”

He shakes his head, “Potentially in the future, but for now, I’m just serving as a consultant for a friend. Lorenzo left an enormous amount of assets in Lila’s hands, and I can’t spread myself too thin.”

Good. I have no idea what my nephew is up to, but I don’t trust it, and I don’t need my boyfriend caught up in it too.

I take the food to the dining table. There’s clearly enough for three, so Nikolas must be staying for dinner. 

Tomas asks Nikolas, “Any word from Valentin?”

“Aside from his standard threats of violence to me and everyone I care about?”

“He won’t let up, huh?”

“Not until he claims what he believes to be his birthright.”

“Spencer stopped ditching his guards?”

Nikolas laughs, “No, I had to find better guards.” 

I have no interest in hearing about Valentin, nor his violent claims to the CI throne, so I figure this is as good a time as any to change for dinner. As I’m heading upstairs, I hear someone’s phone ring.

I stand in my closet and lament the state of my wardrobe. I hate shopping, and have no interest in doing so, but necessity may require me to actually get out and purchase something new. I haven’t been shopping in over a year...long before I lost the girls and Danny. 

That’s how I think about my life now, divided up before and after that horrible Christmas day. Before Christmas (BC), life was messy, but everything had its place, and my children and grandchildren were safe. After their Deaths (AD), nothing was ever the same again. 

I haven’t been the same since either. And a wardrobe meant for BC me doesn’t feel like it belongs to AD me, but it’s all I have, and I refuse to go shopping, so there it is. 

I pick out a green blouse and black pants and go back to my room. I throw the clothes on my bed and go to my dresser. I open it, and after a cursory look, I decide to throw in the towel and go shopping. I have a lover now, I can’t be limited to years old underwear. This is just pathetic.

As I’m finding a matching bra and panty set suitable for a seduction when my nephew leaves, I feel a pair of hands land on my waist. I jump, still a little hypervigilant from the trauma of the last year of disasters. But the hands are familiar, and I calm immediately, leaning back into Tomas’s chest. His smell wraps me up in his its delicious comfort.

“Am I taking too long?” I wonder how long I was standing in the closet lost in thought.

“Not at all. Nikolas received an urgent call from his mother, and had to leave rather abruptly.”

“Is Laura ok?”

“She seems to be.” Tomas ends our focus on Laura and Nikolas by tracing the line of my robe’s belt to the knot in the front. His lips graze warmly over my neck as his fingers untie the little piece of fabric. “I thought I’d rush up here and stop you from making a big mistake.”

My hands reach up behind me to grasp his head as his teasing lips hover over my sensitive skin. “Mistake?”

“Yeah,” he frees the knot and pulls open my robe. “Putting on clothes.”

“What a catastrophe,” I tease.

“A tragedy of humanity.” His hands brush over my stomach giving me chills down my limbs.

“I’d forgotten Nikolas was coming.”

He rumbles in pleasure, “Oh, so you were waiting around like this for me?”

“I’ve been craving you.” 

He can’t help squeeze me into him when I admit how bad I’ve been wanting him. His cock is thick and hard, and it’s pressing against my lower back. I turn my head and meet his lips, kissing him hard.

His hands wander, groping needy at my breasts. I shimmy out of my robe without breaking the kiss. I love this, being naked and vulnerable in his arms while he can’t keep his hands off me.

“I missed you all damn day,” he says. “All I could think about was this...your tits in my hands…” he gives them a squeeze. “Your pussy choking my cock.” He bends his knee as rubs his cock, straining in his pants, against my ass. “How am I supposed to get any work done knowing what’s waiting for me when I get here?”

His want for me has me all fired up. I reach behind and loose his belt and pants. I hear them drop, and his hard cock is right at my ass. It’s hot and smooth and so inviting.

His hands leave my body for a moment, and when they return, his bare chest and arms surround me. I lean forward on my dresser and arch my back, demanding he push inside me. Tomas is all too willing to oblige. With one arm circled around and pulling me against his chest, and the other hand dropping to my pussy and working my clit, his hips push forward and his cock finds it’s way to my sex. 

Thank God he doesn’t tease or taunt, he just fucks. His mouth latches onto my shoulder, sucking, licking, and biting all at once as he pushes his hips forward to slap against my ass. His cock pushes against my g-spot with every thrust, and his fingers stroke my clit.

I like when he fucks me like this; it reminds me of the balcony in Mexico when I gave him my ass for the first time. That full body orgasm coming from everywhere all at once, unrelenting. The thought, the image, the memory of every sensation makes me even hotter for him. 

And being fucked from behind is all about pleasure. Lorenzo’s pleasure. My pleasure. I can’t touch him when I’m holding myself up. I can’t kiss him or tease him. I’m completely at his mercy, just feeling, just being. He takes what he wants from me, and damn if I don’t love every bit of it.

He’s rough and aggressive, completely uninhibited. The dresser is banging against the wall, and my jewelry box is shaking so hard, I’m sure it’s going to fall to the floor. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but the man behind me and him fucking me until this need in me is sated.

He’s rubbing my clit with intention now, and I know he’s about to come. I’m almost there, and I know he’ll get me there. He knows how bad I need this...thank the gods for his intuition.

My knees are shaking and my arms are weak. His cock driving inside me so hard and so fast breaks through whatever dam was holding back my climax. I scream out as if I’m in pain, and it almost feels that way, it’s so intense. It’s almost too damn much. But FUCK I want more and more and never want it to end. His hands and his pounding cock don’t stop; they don’t let me come down. They drive me on harder and harder. My arms give out, and I’m certain I’ll hit the floor, but he’s got me pulled tight against him and I don’t move. My body is shaking, trying to curl in on itself, but it’s still being fucked.

Lorenzo is grunting and huffing and growling with every stroke. I don’t know how he can hold me up and move like he is...I wish I could help him, but I’m a victim of my pleasure, completely paralyzed. 

Both his arms wrap tight around me, and he yells deep and gravelly when he makes his final thrusts. My pussy is squeezing him, grabbing at him, wanting him to stay there forever. He thrusts again and again, and finally stops. As if weightless for a moment, he holds me bent over, then gravity returns, and we’re falling to the dresser. 

His arm reaches out and stops of from colliding with the heavy furniture. His heavy breath on my neck tells me how winded he is, and it takes him a moment to push up from the dresser and drag us to the bed. We collapse, and I’m shockingly lightheaded. I’d forgotten I hadn’t eaten today.

Lorenzo lays heavy on me, so it takes me ages to get the energy to roll over beneath him. His blue eyes are hazy and half-closed in post-climactic bliss. I imagine mine don’t look much different, save the color. His short beard is scratchy as I run my hand over his cheek. He gives the sweetest, subtle smile, as though my touch means everything to him. I’m foggy in my buzz of affection for this man. 

“I love you, Lo,” I say. 

He closes his eyes as though he’s savoring my words. The smile never leaves his lips. I kiss him to punctuate my words. I kiss him because I can’t not kiss him. I need his mouth on mine to steady my still racing heart.

When my growling stomach finally alerts him to my hunger, he laughs and pulls himself away to bring me food. It isn’t until he’s gone that I realize...he’s not Lorenzo. He’s Tomas.

I just told Tomas I love Lorenzo. Damn.

Maybe he wasn’t savoring my words...maybe he was trying not to let them ruin the moment.

Unless… 

Unless he WAS savoring my words...as Lorenzo.

My exhaustion is somehow gone, and I sit up tense in bed. He’s back in minutes with the food and a couple glasses of water. He has a bounce in his step, and a twinkle in his eye…

Would Tomas be this elated if I called him the wrong name...more than once?!

I watch him sip his glass of water before he opens the box of food. My eyes don’t leave the glass as he starts eating. 

“Alexis?”

“Huh?” I realize he’s been talking to me for several moments before I answered.

“Are you ok?”

“Of course. Why?”

“Your stomach is screaming for a meal, but you’re completed zoned out.”

I smile and shake off the worry as best I can, pulling from my old Cassadine days of deceit. “I must still be caught up from...you know.” I nod to the dresser.

He smirks with pride. “That would make anyone lose themselves for more than a moment.

I force myself to eat to appease HIM. Tomas. Lorenzo. Whoever. He can’t know I have my suspicions.

And they’re just that...suspicions. They’re no longer flippant, irrational doubts. He FEELS like Lorenzo. He acts like Lorenzo.

I spent the last year in a state of chronic avoidance to survive the worst of situations. I can’t avoid anymore. I can’t let that man fool me again. And if he’s really Tomas, I owe it to him to rid myself of all my doubts…

He sees the clothes I had laid out on the bed. He says, “You know, there is a closet full of your clothes in your old room at the villa. If you want, I can have them shipped.”

The clothes Lorenzo bought me… “Oh, you can just donate them to charity. They were never really my clothes.”

He smiles stiffly as though he’s disappointed. 

I cannot avoid this feeling turning in my stomach any longer.

I insist on cleaning up dinner. His empty glass of water never makes it to the sink.


	7. Test

Lorenzo

____________________________

“What’s wrong, Alexis?”

“Hmm?” she asks dismissively.

“Hey.” I lift her chin and force her to look at me. “Tell me.”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She squirms from one foot to the other as we ride up the elevator to the top floor of the Metro Court for a quick lunch on her break.

I give her a look that tells her I’m not buying it.

“Fine...there is something, but I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“Alexis…”

She looks weary. “Tomas, please. I have a busy day. I don’t want to get into it until we have more time. Can we talk tonight?”

I thought her little ‘secret’ excursion to Llanview had set her mind at ease about my identity...at least it seemed so last night when she let me fuck her senseless. But today, again, she’s tense and withdrawn. It has to be the sex that’s triggering her. It’s just too damn good. There’s nothing to be done about that, though. If I have to stop fucking her, I might as well tell her who I am.

“Ok, we’ll talk later,” I allow. But I don’t give her space. I kiss her gently, testing the water. She doesn’t push me away, so I deepen the kiss. She’s immediately responsive from lips to toes. I love how bad she wants me.

We almost miss our stop, but I’m able to disengage long enough to hold the door and let her through. I’d really rather just get a room for an hour, but a woman like Alexis deserves to be taken to lunch. 

We get a table near the elevators, which is too much traffic for my taste, but my irritation is eased by her letting me hold her hand and stroke her palm. I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her gently. She smiles as she peers over the menu at me. 

Her eyes drop to continue perusing the afternoon’s selection. I kiss her again, this time tasting her skin and nipping gently with my teeth. When she looks up this time, her eyes are hooded, and she can’t hide her arousal even as she pulls her hand away from me and says, “We’re in public.”

Like I care. I reach for her seat and pull it close so she’s sitting right next to me. My arm wraps around her, and I lift her chin for a kiss. 

“Tomas,” she laughs. “You’re incorrigible.” 

I silence her with another kiss, one even I might have to say is inappropriate for public. She’s dazed when I release her mouth...no more fight...just the way I like her. Completely at my mercy.

“Well I remember a time you once kissed me like that in a restaurant,” says a distinctly Southern voice a few feet away. “Except, I had the foresight to clear the place out before things got out of hand.”

“Blair?” says Alexis, turning her head to see the blonde standing over our table. 

What the fuck is she doing here?

“I’m sorry for interrupting.” The smile on her face shows she isn’t sorry at all.

“What can we do for you, Blair?” I say.

“Well now, Tomas, you did leave town quite unexpectedly, after all. And I heard about your ordeal in Mexico. I just wanted to see if you’re ok...say hello...”

I look down at Alexis and let my affection for her show plainly on my face. “I’m obviously fine. And I heard you’re doing well yourself.”

Blair sits down...It was too much to hope she’d leave at that. She did come all the way from Llanview.

“Oh, I’m doing alright. A lot has happened in the years you were gone. I was hoping you’d have some time to catch up.”

I narrow my eyes at her. The nerve of the woman to just show up out of the blue without a call. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I just checked into the hotel and came up here for a bite. I was going to call and see if we could arrange a meeting, but fate wasn’t about to have us wait.”

“As you can see, I’m a little preoccupied.” I stroke Alexis’s arm to punctuate my point. “Maybe we could arrange something another time.”

I can’t get a read on Alexis at the moment. She’s tense, I can feel that, but her face is completely impassive. She’s much quieter than normal.

“Now, Tomas, I just want to talk a few minutes. The last time I saw you was when you left my bed, for goodness sake. Then, nothing. For years.”

“My absence didn’t seem to slow you down.” 

“Did you expect me to wait forever? I searched for you when I heard about the existence of this Lorenzo Alcazar person. I thought he might be you.”

“Then what? You just gave up?” I smile, knowing exactly how feeble her attempts to search for Tomas were. “And when Sebastian told you where I was, you lost the fight in you, huh?”

“Tomas…” she chides. “You know we were worried about what Baz was caught up in.”

I shake my head at her pathetic excuses. I know it’s a game I’m playing here, but Tomas’s family and fiance were worthless to him. Alexis would traverse the globe for her family a million times over before giving up...like she did for Scout. It’s not difficult to feign my irritation with Blair. 

I don’t know what my brother ever saw in this woman. She’s obviously selfish and manipulative, and certainly not beautiful enough to overlook her character flaws. It doesn’t even feel like she’s really here for ‘Tomas.’ Maybe she’s here for appearances. Maybe she’s here to put one over on Alexis. 

It doesn’t matter. She needs to go.

“As you can see, I’m fine.” I look at Alexis, “I’m more than fine. I’m happy and fulfilled in a way I’ve never been before.”

Blair raises an eyebrow at me, “Never before?”

“That’s right.”

“Your sister tells me you’ve stopped painting. You’ve stopped playing music. That was such an essential part of your identity, of your purpose in life. You don’t need that anymore?”

“After years of incarceration, such things have become trivialities. I’m far more interested in building a safe and happy life with the people I care about.”

“This from the man who told me he’d rather lose his apartment than be unable to purchase a tube of lilac paint.”

She’s testing me. That’s what this is about. It’s a test. “Blue cerulean was the color, Blair. But you knew that.” Tomas told me all about their first meeting.

She smiles a little more softly than a moment before. “You can’t blame a girl for questioning if her long lost fiance who wants nothing to do with her anymore is really him, or his evil twin brother.”

“Any other questions for me? Any other tests? Just be upfront with it, so we can both move on.”

Blair puckers her lips and considers…“What’s the first song you ever played for me on the piano?”

“Chopsticks.”

“The first place we kissed?”

“The Capricorn.”

“What was the first gift you brought me in Llanview?”

“A bottle of wine from Paris.” She’s not even making this hard. “Satisfied?”

“Hardly.”

Alexis places a hand on my leg and rubs it soothingly. She’s trying to comfort me during this inquisition. Damn, I love her.

“If you’ll excuse us, Blair, Alexis and I only have a brief time for our lunch date, and though you’re obviously unconcerned about her comfort, it is my highest priority.”

Blair raises an eyebrow at me, “Wow, Téa was right, you have gone cold.”

“Oh, I’d hardly call him cold,” snaps Alexis. “He spent the entirety of your engagement utterly devoted to you, and you failed him when he needed you most. Now he’s moved on to someone else, and you’re inserting yourself as though you have some sort of claim to him. Well, you don’t. You’ve wasted your time coming here. Tomas has asked you to leave more than once, and now I’m going to have to insist, as well.”

I’m certainly not feeling very cold. Her fierce protectiveness of me has me hot as hell. 

Blair is staring daggers at Alexis...I’ve seen that look before. That’s a Carly look. She’s planning something. I tighten my grip on Alexis…

“You know, Alexis,” says Blair with an evil smirk, “When you came to Llanview yesterday to talk to Téa, I thought you’d be supportive of me questioning Tomas.”

Alexis turns her head to me to see my reaction. She’s worried I’ll be upset, as if I didn’t know what she was up to...as though I’m not having my guards watch her every move. I smile softly at her worried eyes. I kiss her gently to soften the tension on her brow. 

“I think I’ve lost my appetite,” she says.

“Let me take you to the courthouse. If you’re hungry by then, I’ll buy you a hot dog from the cart on the corner.”

She nods, and I move to stand, pulling her chair back. 

“Goodbye, Blair,” I say, with hardly a glance in her direction. I’m far more concerned about the agitated woman on my arm. I lead her back to the elevator where we just came from. We really should’ve just gotten a room for the hour.

On our way back down to my car, she’s chewing on her lip with her arms crossed in the corner of the elevator. I hate when she’s unhappy.

“I have a confession to make,” I say.

“Hmm?”

“I know you went to Llanview yesterday.”

She narrows her eyes at me, “You’re having me followed?”

“Protected.”

“And you didn’t tell me? That’s having me followed.”

“Valentin is threatening Nikolas’s family.”

“You should’ve told me.”

“You’re right, though I can’t imagine you’d let me keep a guard on you.”

She shrugs.

“And,” I continue, “you should’ve told me you were having doubts about my identity, so much so that you’d fly to see my sister to talk about me behind my back.”

“I was planning on telling you...tonight.”

I come close to her. “Why are you doubting me?”

The doors open to the lobby. 

“Let’s not do this now. I have to get back to work soon.” She walks out the doors. 

I catch up in a few strides and escort her back to my car. I open the passenger door, and when she gets in, I squat down and grab her hand. She’s got that weary look in her eyes again.

“I love you, Alexis. There is nothing you or anyone else in the world can do to change that. So, talk to Téa, talk to Blair, talk to whomever you need to feel better about us.”

She smiles softly and leans in to kiss me, no less weary. 

I stand up and close her door. As I walk around to the driver’s side, I think of how angry she’s be if she knew the truth. She’s going to kill me when she finds out, though I’ve no clue if that prediction is literal or figurative. For some reason the thought makes me smile as I close the door and walk to the driver’s seat.

_________________________________

“Alexis is coming over again?” Lila is smirking at me from the other side of the kitchen counter. I chop the last of the tomato for the salad.

“She’ll be here any minute.” I can’t help the lift at the corner of my mouth at my daughter’s obvious joy for me. I keep thinking about how impossible it would’ve been to make this work with Alexis back when I was taking care of Sage. The thought of my niece shooting blanks at Alexis in the courthouse makes me sick to my stomach. But Lila just wants me happy, and is willing to be my accomplice in whatever charade I concoct to make that happen. 

“I’ll get out of your hair, then,” she says. 

“You can join us for dinner, sweetheart. There’s plenty of food.”

“I already have plans.”

“With who? Molly?”

“Nope. Just someone I met at Art Hop.”

Someone? I look up at my little girl who’s suddenly that tiny, little baby I pulled from her mother’s womb with my own two hands. Fragile, helpless, vulnerable. “A boy?”

Lila shrugs. 

“This is a date?” I’m gripping my knife a little too hard. I set it down before I hurt myself...or leave to gut some unsuspecting boy.

“Yeah. What’s the big deal? I’ve been dating since I was sixteen.”

“Well, who is this kid?”

Lila raises an eyebrow at me, “This young MAN is someone I met at Art Hop, and that’s all I know. That’s why we’re having a date...to get to know each other.”

“You’re going out on a date with a guy you hardly know?”

Lila rolls her eyes, “Don’t worry, Daddy. Kevin Costner and Denzel Washington will be following me the entire time.”

“I don’t have a clue what that means.”

“The guards, Daddy.”

I’m having a hard time finding enough air.

“Let’s hope Alexis gets here fast,” says Lila. “Clearly, you could use the distraction.”

“Just, don’t try to ditch your guards for privacy, Lila.”

“I can handle myself just fine.”

“...and I can’t afford to lose anyone else important to me.”

“Daddy, you taught me how to protect myself when you took me to Mexico. I can get away from an overzealous boy easily enough.”

“Now he’s a ‘boy’ again?” She’s handling me, I know. “Here.” I take her down the hall to my office. I open a drawer that holds some weapons. 

“Ooooo,” she says as she reaches eagerly for the little Kahr Arms P380 pistol. It’s a nice, easy to hide firearm. I know it’s not loaded, but I watch to make sure she remembers her lessons about checking the barrel and the safety. She’s learned well.

“Since you don’t have a concealed carry license, I was thinking this…” I pick up the Spyderco Matriarch 2 knife. “It’s easy to conceal, and it will automatically deploy when this wave right here catches on the edge of your pocket. See…” I demonstrate for her. 

“Nice…”

“See the curve of the blade? The serration? Don’t stab with it. It doesn’t cut like a dagger. You need slash like a claw. It requires little in the way of training or accuracy, and it’ll cut through someone’s bone if you put your back into it.”

I close the blade and hand it to her while taking the gun from her hand. “Your guards can carry the firearms for now.”

She hugs me tight like I’ve given her jewelry instead of a high-grade self-defense weapon. Then, she practices opening and closing the blade, like I showed her. Lila’s enthusiasm for my guns and knives might be disconcerting for someone outside the family, but it pleases me that she might actually use it on an unsuspecting bastard who tries to put unwanted hands on my child.

And it’s a pretty cool blade. I keep one upstairs in my nightstand, just in case.

She closes the blade and puts it in her front pocket as I walk her out to the living room. Alonso enters and announces, “Ms. Davis is in the kitchen.”

I give Lila Rae a hug goodbye, and kiss her forehead. She leaves through the front door, and I head to the kitchen. 

Alexis is a vision in blue. Her delicate blouse hinting at the form beneath, and her tight skirt sharing even more. The best women’s clothing always inspires a man to want to rip it off the one wearing it. I want to see shreds of that blue shade littering my floor.

I wonder if that’s the shade of cerulean so important to Tomas and Blair. 

She’s snooping in the pots I have on the stove, and I think she’s debating tasting what’s inside. I walk quietly behind her, snaking my arms around her waist. I kiss behind her ear, and nibble on her lobe.

“Hello,” she says.

My hands take liberties with her body, “Hello, counselor. How was your afternoon in court?” 

She doesn’t answer, and her muscles don’t have their usual give at my fingertips. She’s tense. “What’s wrong?” 

She shrugs, surprisingly mute for someone so eloquent. I don’t let up my hands, wondering if I can get her to relax with my touch. But even that doesn’t work like it usually does.

I turn her around needing to see her eyes. I need them to speak to me the way her mouth won’t.

“Alexis...tell me.”

She’s stiff and resolved when she says, “I can’t do this anymore, Tomas.”

“What?” I know what she means, but I need to her spell it out anyway.

“This. Us. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Why the hell not? Did Blair get under your skin?”

She shakes her head. “No...she just reminded me that you and Lorenzo are two different people. I often lose sight of that.”

“I told you, that’s a problem we can work through with time.”

“No, Tomas. It’s more than what you think. I’m not just projecting my love for Lorenzo onto you, I’m...I’m questioning if Lorenzo is really you.”

My bright girl. “Why?”

“You know why. You’re so much like him...especially when…”

...when she screams ‘Lorenzo!’ while fucking ‘Tomas.’ “When we make love.”

“It feels like HIM.”

Hell yes it does. “Did you ever stop to think it’s him that feels like me? You like the way we both feel?”

She sighs deep, and pulls away. I grab her and pull her back in. I can’t have her running again.

“So you think I’m Lorenzo, and I’ve been lying to you this whole time?”

“Truthfully, my certainty one way or another has been swinging like a pendulum.”

“So, what, Alexis? You just decide in your head that I’m Lorenzo, then leave?”

She pulls away successfully this time.

“Alexis?” 

She walks to the other side of this kitchen, putting as much space between us as she can. 

“So that’s it, huh? You’re going to leave me on a paranoid hunch?”

“I’d rather not rely on my own judgement. Why do you think I went to see Téa?”

“So, you’d rather rely on the hunches of people who knew me seven years ago?”

“What the hell else am I supposed to do, Tomas?”

The space between us is unbearable. I close the gap, leaning a hand against the wall behind her, caging her in...exactly where I like her...exactly where she likes to be. 

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to do. I just want to love you, no matter who you think I am.”

Her eyes soften at my words, so I keep going. “And I want to feel you love me. I don’t care how, and don’t care why you love me, I just want to feel it.” 

Her hands run over my chest. I step in, pressing her against the wall. 

She’s biting her lip, fighting herself to resist me, “All the men in your family have a twisted sense of devotion to the women they love. It’s just plain crazy.”

I chuckle, “You like that, don’t you?”

She does. 

She cups my face her hands and says, “This is one of those moments when you feel like him. Tomas was never like this with me.”

Because I would’ve killed him if he tried. 

She tries to push me away. She’s not very strong with those tiny little arms. Luis must’ve been drunk as hell to get tossed off that balcony. I step back so she feels like she has some control.

“Here’s the problem,” she says. “I love you most when you feel like Lorenzo.”

I can’t help but smile, so I turn around to hide it from her. Pathetic, I know.

She goes on, “It’s not fair to you to keep doing this when Lorenzo is the man I really want.”

I turn around, “You don’t get to decide what’s fair to me, Alexis.”

“Fine, then what about what I want, Tomas? You're not the man I love. You’re not the man I want. I’ll never be fulfilled in this relationship. You’ll never be HIM.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

A tear drops from her eye as she says, “I love him. And I’ll never get over him while I’m with you.”

“Are you saying that if he walked through the door right now, you’d choose him over me?”

More tears fall down her cheeks, “If I didn’t kill him first...yeah.”

“And what? You’d just forgive him for killing Julian. Forgive him for killing your family and taking your girls?”

“Do you remember when you talked about Lorenzo’s ‘greatest good’ changing from vengeance to loving me?”

“I remember.”

“Maybe my greatest good as changed, too. Lorenzo didn’t know me when he killed my girls and Danny. He didn’t know me when he kidnapped Scout. When he fell for me, it changed everything for him.”

“And Julian?”

She shrugs, “I know darkness better than anyone. My father, my brothers, all my lovers...We all have darkness inside us…”

“So, you’re throwing away a chance at a future with me, because I’m too much like him, or not enough?”

“Both. You can buy his old house, you can raise his daughter, you can fuck his girlfriend, you can take over his businesses, but you can’t BE HIM.”

I’m stunned. Confused to hell and back. She wants ME. She’d forgive me. I could just tell her who I am, right here and right now, and I could stop this stupid charade and have the life of my dreams…

But why does it feel like bullshit? There’s a voice in my head telling me not to trust it. An intuition. A voice I’ve learned to value above all others. Whenever I don’t listen to that voice, terrible things tend to happen to me. It’s a part of my mind that sees things, connects the dots, and tells me what’s going on long before I can fully understand why. It’s not until later that I follow the trail of my intuition and realize how right it was.

Marrying Carly, trusting Skye…

Love clouds my intuition. I need to slow down and follow the trail. The deceitful woman before me has lied to me so many times before. She could be lying to me now.

Where’s the red flag...the warning lights?

She’s being honest about the darkness in her...about accepting darkness in me...I know she’s capable of that…

She loves me more than Tomas...she’s being honest about that, too…

So where’s the deceit?

Her children. Her grandchildren. They are her greatest good. She’d never, NEVER put a man before them. 

She killed my brother for Kristina. She dressed up as a man, pretended to be crazy, ran that boy down who her beat up Kristina. 

She faced death to save Scout.

She’d do it again in a heartbeat.

She’s lying to me.

Why?

I use all my own formidable skills at deception to keep the smile in my mind off my lips when I realize...She’s testing me. Preying on my hubris. She wants me to triumphantly declare my identity hoping she’ll rush into my arms.

Clever little Cassadine…

But she’s only a Cassadine bastard, and lacking in her ability to completely deceive me. Her blood is diluted with that pretty, little opera singer’s goodness. Deceit is more my game than hers. The lawyer in her should’ve known better than to put all her eggs in this basket. 

Now it’s my turn to call her on her bluff...to test her...

I step slowly toward her, face impassive. Her body is so much smaller than mine, and seems to shrink even more when I stalk toward her this way. I stop close, boundaries be damned. A strand of hair is hanging in her eyes. I move it aside with the gentlest touch I can muster.

“You’ll never be satisfied with me because I’m not him?”

She’s breathing heavy as she nods.

“You’d take back the man who murdered my son? You’d forgive him for killing your kin?”

She nods again.

I cradle her face in my hands, and bring my lips to her cheek, whispering, “Even though he’s dead, you’d give this up because of him?”

“Yes,” she says breathless.

I graze my lips down her cheek to her mouth, beard scratching her soft skin. I whisper against her lips, “You’re crazier than I ever thought, woman.”

I kiss her once more. A gentle kiss. A goodbye kiss. She moans against my mouth, and I know she wants more. 

I pull away. “If that’s your choice, you can see yourself out of my home.”

Her eyes widen in shock, and I’m afraid I’m going to let my triumph show in my eyes. I turn away and walk out of the room, leaving her there to stew. 

I make an unnecessary amount of noise going up to my room, so she’ll know where to find me. I pass my housekeeper on the way, and tell her to finish cooking dinner. 

Certain Alexis will follow, I start disrobing. I don’t think it will hurt to catch her off guard. I get my shirt, socks, and shoes off, and I’m taking off my belt when I hear heels clicking tentatively down the hall. I turn around when they stop at the door. 

Her eyes are filled with tears threatening to fall. Damn it, I hate when she cries. It completely guts me. 

I toss my belt aside and cross my arms waiting for her to speak. Her hands are balled into fists, and she’s rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as though deciding whether or not to run at me or run away.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

I huff, “There’s nothing to be sorry about. You can’t help how you feel. You love him. Not me. I’ll never satisfy you. Frankly, I’m glad you were honest.”

“I lied.”

“Pardon?”

“I lied.”

“About what exactly?”

She tries unsuccessfully to keep her voice steady, “I only said those things to...to try to get you to admit you’re Lorenzo.”

I don’t say anything. I really don’t know what the best thing to do is at this point. The truth is...for the first time in this shithole situation, I’m feeling terrible for lying to her. She’s in pain...it’s never been so evident before today.

How long has she felt like this? I watch her so closely, yet I’ve never seen this before. How is it that she could hide this pain from me when she could hide nothing else? What the hell am I doing to her?

“I can’t tell the difference between the two of you. It scares me. And you can tell me you’re Tomas a million times, and I don’t know if I’d ever fully believe it. But all it would take would be once for me to believe you’re Lorenzo.”

“Lorenzo hurt you terribly, didn’t he? You always talk about what he did to your children and grandchildren, but you never talk about what he did to you.”

“Because it pales in comparison. And what he did to them hurts more than anything he did to me.”

“He kidnapped you. He lied to you. Deceit after deceit. Yet, you love him so purely.”

She sniffs a laugh through falling tears. “My love for him was hardly pure. I seduced him. That’s the only reason I even had the opportunity to fall in love with him...but you knew that. You were coaching me. You were the one who told me he would know if what I was showing him wasn’t real. I had to make it real...” She stifles a sob. “Well, I did. What I feel for Lorenzo Alcazar is the only real thing in my life right now.”

“Alexis…” I’m such an fucking asshole for doing this to her. 

“I’m sorry, Tomas. I care for you, and I don’t wish you were Lorenzo. I’m crazy about you as you are, and I’m certain I could fall in love with you the way you love me. I just needed to make sure you weren’t him. I can’t allow myself to be vulnerable to him again. He’s already taken enough from me.”

“Are you sure now?”

Tears fall freely, “No.”

“And if you truly thought I was Lorenzo? Then what?”

She stares me straight in the eyes and says, “I’d slice your throat.”

I think I believe her. 

“Here.” I turn to my nightstand and pull out the other Spyderco Matriarch. I open it up and set it on top of the nightstand for her to come claim. “For when you can no longer see me, and only see my brother. I might actually thank you for it at that point.”

“Tomas…” she cries.

“A knife is a smart choice. You won’t alert my guards if you go straight for the throat and destroy the vocal cords…” like Helena did to her mother.

“Stop.”

I laugh and open my arms to her. I feel a little crazy when I say, “Love me or kill me, baby. It’s up to you.”

She stands there looking at me for an endless moment. I drop my arms and wait, wondering if she’s really considering killing me. I shrug off that possibility. If I had to die, it would be a fine way to go.

Finally, she comes forward, her first steps slow, then she rushes me. Our bodies and mouths collide, our arms locking us together where we fucking belong.

I need this woman. I NEED her. I need to kiss her, I need to hold her, I need to love her. 

She mine, and I’m not going to let her fucking go. I’ve lost everything in this world. I lost Sophie, my parents, my brother, my niece, my son, my daughter, my business, and I almost lost my life. I’ve spent more than a decade building it back up, piece by piece. I finally have my daughter, my business, and the woman I love. NOTHING is going to take that from me. NOTHING.

I make love to Alexis, slow and passionate. I want it to last forever. She keeps choosing me, whether she knows it or not. I don’t take that for granted. Every stroke of my cock inside her, every lick in her mouth, every orgasm I bring her is a fucking gift...a hard-earned, hard-fought gift. A triumph. My purpose. My passion. My reason for living.

I make love to her for as long as my body can take it. She orgasms over and over, as many times as I can give her. When my abs are straining and my legs are threatening to collapse, I finally give in to my own climax. Then, I kiss her until I fall asleep…

__________________________

I hardly notice when she rolls me off her so she can breathe. 

And I think I hear her saying something about getting her phone to check on Molly, and her weight leaves the bed.

A part of me thinks I should check on Lila Rae, but I know my guys will keep her safe. Julian Jerome taught me a lesson about keeping my daughter safe.

I fall back asleep.

__________________________

“Lorenzo?”

Damn, that’s a nice sound. I love when she says my name like that, with her husky sex voice.

“Wake up, my love.”

I want to wake. I do. I’m just worn the fuck out, and I can’t get my eyes open.

“Lorenzo…”

She’s on me, straddling me. She likes being on top, rubbing that cunt all over me. Fuck, I’m getting hard. 

That finally gives me the energy to open my eyes. Not much, though. Just a little light gets through. The lamp on the nightstand is illuminating that sweet face above.

“Wake up, baby,” she says. “Wake up, Lo. I want you awake when I slice your throat.”

My eyes fly wide open, fueled by my racing heart. I see her clearly now. She’s pretending to be calm, but her eyes are raging.

Then I feel it...the sharp point digging into my neck.

“How’d you find out?” I say, relieved the fucking charade is over.

“Your fingerprints. You have some very distinctive marks...so did Tomas.”

“But I had people at the PCPD and the Llanview PD set up to interfere with the fingerprint results.”

“My Private Investigator used to work for the ATF. He called when we were fucking. I called him back only a moment ago.” 

“Clever girl.”

“Like I’d use the useless PCPD, or Tomas’s old friends to get me what I need. I took what I need for myself.”

Beautiful, deadly woman. My hands run over her bare thighs on either side of my hips. I see she’s donned my button-up shirt. 

I feel a swell of pride that she outsmarted me. She couldn’t out-deceive me, but she got me in the simplest goddamn way. She got me like the District Attorney she used to be, like the lawyer she still is, with classic fingerprint evidence.

She shakes her head in disgust. “I knew it was you. I fucking knew it.”

“You wanted it to be me.”

“You bastard.”

“You love me.”

“I hate you.”

“That, too.”

She presses the knife harder against my skin, and I feel a drop of blood run down my neck. My breath is quick and shallow.

“I’m going to kill you, you bastard...I’m going to kill you for Sam, for Kristina, for Danny, for Scout and Avery, for Baz, for Julian, for Tomas. But mostly...mostly I’m going to kill you for making me a fool over and over and over again.”

“You’re no fool.”

“I’m your fool. At least, I was. I’m not anymore.”

I look her up and down. Damn she’s beautiful. An angel highlighted by a single lamp in an otherwise dark room. Such a sexy woman astride me, so well-fucked her muscles aren’t even tense as she prepares to kill me. My hands trace up and down her legs, then under my shirt to her waist. 

I’m hard as a fucking rock.

“I can’t think of a better way to go. Do your worst, Princess Cassadine.”


	8. Ruined

Alexis

____________________________

The curved blade is so sharp, it cuts his skin so much easier than I expect. Just a little poke, and blood is dripping like tears from his neck to the soft, white sheets. It’s a mesmerizing contrast. The smell of the blood puts images of other slit throats in my head...my mother….Baz. I can smell the sickly metallic flavor that reminds me so much of Helena.

I’m Helena now…

“I can’t think of a better way to go. Do your worst, Princess Cassadine,” he says.

His cocky smirk, even in the face of fear, is back. It’s Lorenzo. My Lo. No more of his brother’s masks. 

My left hand keeps the knife at his throat, and my right reaches up to stroke his face. The relief I feel that he’s alive is intense and disgusting. But it’s such a beautiful face, more beautiful now that I know it’s his.

I’m glad he grew the beard back. It scratches my hand, and it reminds me of Mexico. He turns his mouth and kisses my palm. I trace his lips with my fingers.

My Lo. Alive. 

The tears start blurring my eyes again.

“Baby,” he says, “I hate it when you cry.” He reaches up and wipes the droplets that are falling down my cheeks.

I bat his hands away. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

He drops them back to my waist. He’s hard between my legs, and it reminds me just how sick his love for me really is.

“I love you, Alexis.”

“You lied to me. Again.”

“I did.” He doesn’t bat an eye. No remorse. No shame.

“Why?”

“You’d never give me a chance, not like you’d give one to Tomas.”

“You sent him to his death. You bastard.”

“Who pulled the trigger, sweetheart?”

“Shut-up.”

His hands are caressing my hips. How easy would it be to get lost in his touch?

“When did you trade places with him?” I ask.

“Right after you walked in the warehouse. I stepped out, and he came in.”

“That’s why there was a second goodbye…” I say more to myself than him. “He knew he was going to his death? He told me before he killed Julian that one day I’d understand...”

“He knew. He played his role.”

My friend. My Tomas. And I pulled the trigger. My tears fall harder.

“Alexis…”

“Stop pretending like you care! You did this to me!”

“I had no choice. Tomas tried to kill me, and Julian kidnapped my daughter.”

“And Sam and Kristina and Danny? What about Scout and Avery? Did Scout try to kill you, too?” my voice drips with sarcasm.

He takes a deep breath and shakes his head, “You won’t believe me if I told you the truth. You’ve made up your mind that I’m a ruthless, kidnapping murderer of women and young children. I’m the Cucuy, the boogeyman, the Devil himself.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve worked so hard to become all these years? Well, congratulations, Lorenzo Alcazar, you were successful. There’s no one more vile on this planet than you.”

“You know that’s not true.”

I shake my head. “No one has caused more damage and destruction in my life than you. Not even Helena. I hate you. I hate you more than I ever hated her.”

He squeezes my hips and shakes me as he says, “Because you love me.”

“I never denied that. You deceived me into loving you.”

“No, you fell in love with me when you thought worse of me than I am.”

“You killed my family...I fell in love with you before I knew what you did to them.”

“I didn’t kill your family.”

I roll my eyes at his semantics, “You had them killed, excuse me.”

“I didn’t have them killed. I saved your granddaughter and the other little girl.”

“Don’t. Don’t even try.” I won’t be manipulated by him again. When he lies to me I only get more angry.

“I’m not lying, Alexis,” he tries to sink into the bed as I press the blade harder into his neck. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Fuck.”

“I stopped believing anything you had to say when I found out you lied to me the first time.”

“Ok, I lied about taking the girls and about being Tomas. But that’s it.”

“Julian sent me pictures of you in New Jersey with the Moretti’s!”

His hands squeeze my waist, “I know what he sent you! You don’t think I was monitoring that phone I gave you? I saw those pictures moments after your did.”

What?! I slap him with my right hand...not as effective as the left, but still satisfying knowing he couldn’t move his head, or the knife would pierce his jugular. “Fuck you! You knew the whole time?”

“Jerome took my daughter from her mother! He took my mockingbird and threw her into a life she was never meant to see! Now it follows her everywhere she goes!”

“You killed his daughter and kidnapped Scout and Avery! You kidnapped me! What did you expect him to do?”

“I expected him to have more value for his own life. What did you expect me to do?!”

“To tell me the truth!”

“You wouldn’t believe me! I’m telling you now and you don’t believe me. I heard the Moretti’s were going to wipe out the whole Corinthos family. I intervened because you and Sonny still owed me your lives for what you took from me. I was going to demand Sonny from the Moretti’s, and come after you myself, but…”

“But what?”

“But I heard they were going to take out the whole family. They didn’t want anyone left to hold a grudge. Not even the littlest ones.”

I shake my head, “No. I don’t believe you.”

“I know you don’t, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. I demanded they give me the little girls. I get my souls, and the little girls don’t die for their parents sins.”

“Then you gave them to the Ruiz family?”

He laughs, “God no. That was a lie, too. A white lie, considering. They were living in a little beach house about a half mile away from the villa. They were well cared for.”

I lift the knife and point it at his face, “So, you’re telling me you didn’t have my daughters and Danny killed, and you’re the reason Scout and Avery are still alive?”

His eyes don’t leave the knife, but he nods and says, “I told you, you wouldn’t believe the truth.”

I shake my head, “You’re right. I don’t believe you. Not a word.” 

His eyes lift from the blade to mine. 

“Even if what you’re saying is true, that you didn’t have my family killed, you still kidnapped me, the girls, and Nikolas. You killed Julian for far less. You sent Tomas to his death.”

“I had Julian killed for kidnapping my daughter. Tomas tried to kill me. Nikolas killed my son. You killed my brother. You all WRONGED me! Everything I did was in retaliation for unforgivable offenses!”

“And you did the same to us!”

“Except I let you and Nikolas go. I gave up my revenge because I fell in love with you. You changed everything for me.”

“Don’t! Don’t!”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk like that. There’s too much between us for there to be anything like love anymore. Don’t try to manipulate me into thinking I can love a man who’s done what you’ve done to me.”

His face is soft, and his hands are moving up and down my thighs again. I don’t want him to be nice to me. I want him to be that asshole I met in Mexico. The guy who threatened me in the Quartermaine foyer while I held my baby. But he’s looking at me with so much love.

“I get it, baby. I get it,” he says.

“What do you think you get?”

“Falling in love with the woman who killed my twin brother...I hated you for it...I hated myself for being so fucked up. Don’t you remember how hard it was for me?”

I do remember. He’d come in drunk to my room, sassing me, then shockingly taking care of me, waves of emotion rolling off him, different from one moment to the next.

“Now you get it,” he says. “You get what it feels like to love the person who wronged you so badly.”

I do get it.

“My whole life was revenge, and you took that from me.”

I bring the blade down to his chest, and place it right over his heart. That’s what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to ruin my revenge.

“We can work, Alexis. You can forgive me like I forgave you.”

“You’re fucking nuts. You killed my family.”

“No, I didn’t. The Moretti’s killed your family. But you killed mine.”

“You could’ve saved Sam, Danny, and Kristina. You let them die. I still see their bloody bodies in my dreams. I still search for Scout amidst their corpses.”

“I didn’t love you then like I do now. If I could go back, I would.”

“You can’t fix this. You can only give me your life for theirs.”

“A soul for their souls? You used to think I was so fucked up for my particular brand of justice. You’re just like me, Alexis. I hated you then like you hate me now.” 

“Bullshit! I trusted you, you betrayed me. I lost everyone, and you made me a fool!”

Lorenzo is undeterred. His hands move to my face and hold me there. “You can’t kill me because you love me. As twisted as this all is, I fell in love with the woman who killed my brother, and she fell for the man who kidnapped her granddaughter.”

“You kidnapped me and Nikolas, too.”

“You were fine with that before you found out about Scout.”

“You killed Julian.”

“You understand why I did that. If the Moretti’s were here, you’d already have them gutted for what they did to your daughters. You don’t blame me for killing Julian.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“You know that’s not true.”

I laugh, “Are you kidding me? Dressing up as Tomas. Making me think I was fucking him so you could fuck me. You’re sick.”

“I’m in love.”

“Your version of love is dark and twisted.”

“That’s why you love me back.”

I shake my head determined not to let him burrow his way into my mind yet again. “You made me kill Tomas! You made me think I killed you.”

“I didn’t pull that trigger, baby. You did. And I don’t blame you. Just like I don’t blame you for this...” he grabs my wrist that’s holding the knife. “You’re going to do what you feel you have to do. That’s what makes you just like me. But just like me...I know you won’t kill me, like I couldn’t kill you.”

I stare down at him. “I hate you.”

“I know. I deserve it.”

“You ruined my life again.”

“I know.”

“You’re not even sorry.”

“I’m sorry you’re crying. I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to realize you could still love me. That we belong together.”

I shake my head. “There’s no way in hell.”

He grabs my wrist, and smirks his cocky little grin...in a second, gravity fails me, and I’m pinned beneath him. My legs are still wide from straddling him, and he’s only a hips’ thrust away from fucking me.

“Don’t you dare,” I say.

“I’m not going to fuck you unless you want it, baby.”

I struggle beneath him, but his body is heavy on top of me, and he has my hands pinned. “Let me go.”

He nods. “I will. I just need to tell you a few things.”

I wait...an unwilling participant in this stupid game.

His beautiful, blue eyes are soft and adoring. They’re loving me in that sick, twisted way of his.

“I love you, Alexis Davis. I did all of this to love you...to feel loved by you.”

I try not to listen. He knows how to play the strings of my soul. I can’t let him manipulate me again!

“I’m going to let you go, but I’m going to need to you find a way to forgive me. Forgive me like I forgave you. I can’t live the rest of my life without you in it.”

He drops his forehead to mine. A wanting whimper escapes my lips. A habit. An involuntary response to the position he has me in, to the lovely words coming from his lips, and to the ache for me in his eyes.

He takes that as some form of consent and presses his lips to mine. My first reaction is to fight, but I stifle that right away. I can’t fight him...yet. I need my hand and the knife free first.

I kiss him back, moaning into his mouth, “Lorenzo.”

He releases my right hand so his left can tangle in my hair. I roll my hips against his cock, and he groans his desire. I move my hips again, and his cock pushes inside me.

“More,” I say. “More.” 

He pulls back his hips and fucks into me. Finally, he releases my left wrist to grab my face and kiss me deep as he drives his cock into me.

“Lo?” I say as sweetly as I can muster.

He lifts his head and stares dreamily into my eyes, “Yeah, baby?”

I squeeze the knife in my hand and stab it into his breast. He’s still a moment as reality sets in. Strangely enough, no look of shock passes over his face...just one of pain. 

He rolls off me onto the bed. I get up and look down at the man grunting in pain, knife sticking out of his chest. Blood is starting to spill from the wound.

“Alexis…” he groans.

“Fuck you, Lorenzo. You ruined everything.” 

I yank off his shirt and hunt down my clothes. As soon as they’re on, I look at Lorenzo one more time. Half the instincts in my body are telling me to call for help...to take care of him. The other half are telling me to run for my life.

I wonder if I’m crossing another of his arbitrary lines of betrayal here. I guess I don’t really care.

“Goodbye, Lo.”

I turn around and walk out the door.


	9. Uncertainty

Lorenzo

____________________________

The cold weather is killing this damn wound. I slowly windmill my arm trying to get some of the ache out of my healing pectoral muscle and increase mobility. It’s a pain in the ass, but at least I’m alive. I don’t think she was really trying to kill me. She would’ve sliced my throat. She didn’t even get past the muscle thanks to the curved blade.

I didn’t call Alexis for the first week after she stabbed me. I figured she’d still be too pissed to talk. Truthfully, I was a little pissed off myself, and didn’t want to talk to her...unless she was apologizing.

I’m over needing an apology now. I just need her.

Part of me hoped she’d come by to make sure I didn’t die, but I was disappointed. After a week, I started calling her a couple times a day. She predictably ignored me. 

This wasn’t how I intended to come out to her. My vision was of the two of us alone on a white sandy beach, just after I sent her orgasming until she couldn’t think straight, and certainly no weapons in sight. I wanted to tell her about saving Scout and Avery from the Moretti’s. I wanted to set it up for the greatest likelihood of a successful outcome.

That failed. Now she doesn’t even believe I didn’t kill her daughters and her grandson. And this time, I’m actually telling the truth. Yes, I kidnapped the little girls instead of Sonny and Alexis, but really, she should be grateful. If it weren’t for me, those girls would be dead. And yes, I am the reason Jerome and Delgado are dead, and I did kidnap her...and Nikolas, but I let them go. And Jerome and Delgado deserved to die.

So, weeks have gone by, and I haven’t talked to the woman. I haven’t even seen her beautiful face, aside from daily updates sent by her security team. I wonder if she knows she’s being followed? I told the team to be discreet, but she must notice more traffic around her isolated home than usual. Security is an unfortunate necessity with her brother increasing hostilities with Nikolas.

As I walk into Kelly’s, I roll my shoulder one last time. I fix my suit jacket, and smooth it out. At least I don’t have to dress like a slob anymore. And I don’t have to worry about whether or not to wear the beard or pack on extra muscle. I don’t have to worry about what I say, or how I speak. And I’ve been in contact with a Native Venezuelan artist to come up with a piece to cover this ridiculous tattoo.

I’m sure the truth is going to come out soon and start spreading like wildfire. Although it will cause me a few complications, I’m fine with that. The main reason I haven’t come out with it myself is Alexis. I’m not sure she’s ready to deal with the fallout.

I sit at an empty table near the door and order a cup of coffee. The waitress is bilingual, and I get to order in my native tongue. It makes the hot coffee on this cold day all the sweeter.

My phone rings in my jacket pocket, and I pull it out quickly in case it’s Alexis. 

“Damn it. This woman is relentless.” It’s Téa. I’ve been having to answer, too, just in case Alexis tells her the truth. I’d like to know what I’m dealing with.

“Hola, pájaro. ¿Como puedo ayudarte?”

She’s just checking in since she hadn’t heard from Alexis in awhile. She wanted to make sure I’m doing ok and wanted to see if she could come by to visit soon. I give vague and pleasant enough answers that I don’t have to make any commitments, but I get off this phone as soon as possible.

Just as I’m hanging up, a message comes through from Alonso. “She’s coming in now.”

I straighten my shoulders and take a sip of coffee. I do everything I can not to stare at the door as I await the woman about to enter.

I can’t help myself. As soon as I hear the door open, my eyes are on her. Nikolas is with her, holding the door. She comes in and shakes the snow off her coat before hanging it up by the door. I feel like a fucking teenager everytime I see her. I need to pull myself together. 

Nikolas escorts her to a table on the other side of the room. I watch them awhile, knowing the moment she sees me she is going to flee. I can only imagine how much she hates me right now.

She and Nikolas are clearly talking business. I wonder how much of that business consists of Valentin. I wonder if any of that business consists of me. I’ve become friendly with Nikolas over the past few months. I’m surprised by my disappointment at the idea of the loss of his friendship.

I pull out my wallet and drop cash on the table. Then, I stand and make my way to Alexis. Nikolas sees me first.

“Hey, Tomas.” He stands to greet me. Clearly Alexis hasn’t informed him of my identity yet. I wonder what’s holding her back.

“Hey, Nik.” We shake hands. I look warily at Alexis, worried about what I’ll find. She’s cold and attempting impassivity, purposely avoiding me. “Hello, Alexis.”

She flicks her eyes up at me, and I can see it...her rage. She is angry. Really angry. I can tell she’s not speaking to me in a feeble effort to make sure the dam doesn’t break. She doesn’t say hello.

In my periphery, Nikolas’s head is moving back and forth between us. I can only imagine what he’s thinking…

Alexis stands, and for a moment I almost think she’s getting up to hug me. It was a very brief and very delusional moment. The hug is given to her nephew, so is the kiss on the cheek, and she walks past me out the door without another word.

Ouch.

“Ouch,” Nikolas echoes my thoughts. “What the hell did you do, man?”

I shake my head. “I messed up. She’s pissed off.”

“Not just pissed off. She’s Cassadine angry. That’s a whole other kind of mad. I haven’t seen her like that since...since...I don’t know...Jerry Jacks poisoned the water supply? Or maybe when her ex-husband cheated on her with her daughter.”

Fuck.

“Grab a seat,” offers Nikolas. “Alexis has a cup of coffee coming. You can help yourself.”

I sit with him. Eager to change the subject so he doesn’t get too curious, I ask about one of the business proposals he ran by me. “Did you decide to go with the hotel in Baja?”

He’s smiling. He knows exactly what I’m doing. Thankfully, he plays along. “No. I’m in discussion with a few states on the gulf coast. I think it’s better positioned for my needs at the moment. The politicians there seem more amenable to new money coming in…”

The waitress brings the coffee. Her hands are full, so I reach up to help. A sharp pain shoots from my chest down to my arm, and I drop the cup, breaking the mug and splattering hot coffee all over the floor. “Damn it. Apologies.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” says the waitress. “I’ll get the mop.”

“What the hell was that?” says Nik. “Old injury?”

I laugh to myself windmilling my arm again. “Fresh one. Your aunt is Cassadine angry, remember?”

Nikolas just nods in understanding. I appreciate how similar this family is to mine. As though a streak of violence is expected in a lover’s spat. A strange thing how I can sit in front of the man who killed my son and laugh with him about his murderous aunt injuring me with no hate or desire for vengeance in my blood for either one of them.

Alexis cured me of that. And getting to know Nikolas has helped. We talked about Diego when I first came back to town. My son was in a bad way before he died. And Diego did kill Emily Quartermaine...I adored Emily. And she was Nikolas’s soulmate. I can’t blame him for what he did, just like I can’t blame Alexis for Luis. Not anymore.

I’m hoping Alexis can get to a place where she can do the same for me…

“The problem is Valentin has connections in Caribbean,” says Nikolas.

“Isn’t that the point, to gain strength and connections in places your enemies have a stronghold?”

Nikolas sighs, “Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

Nikolas rubs his face in his hands, “I shouldn’t involve you in this. You’ve made it clear you’re out of this dangerous lifestyle.”

I wave him off, “Did Valentin make another move?”

Nikolas nods. “That night I saw you at Alexis’s...you remember I received a call from my mother?”

“Yes, it was urgent. You left quickly.”

“He tried having her run off the road.”

I narrow my eyes, “That’s messy, and rarely effective.” A foolish way of trying to kill someone.

“It was a cliff. She was driving up the hills to meet Kevin at some vacation rental cabin. The roads were icy, and they nearly pushed her off the mountain.”

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You said you can’t help. I respect that.”

I sigh heavily. This isn’t sitting well with me. “Look, maybe I can talk to Alexis…”

“No. No. She’d never let you intervene. And you have Lila Rae to think about. I know you’re trying to keep her safe.”

“You let me worry about Lila.” No one is hurting my daughter. “I’ll talk to Alexis and see if she’d be ok with me stepping in.”

Nikolas raises his eyebrows and sips his coffee, “You think you’re going to get a chance to talk to her when she’s that pissed?”

I smirk. “I’m not above using this as a reason to finagle my way back in.”

________________________________

Alexis is busy over the next few days. I wonder if she’s working so much to purposefully to distract herself from me. I wish I could get lost in my work. I’m having the opposite problem. It’s hard to focus when she’s so furious at me.

After three days of her dodging me, I decide to make a meeting happen. My first thought is to go to her house for privacy, but I’m afraid she’ll call the cops for trespassing, as I’m sure I won’t be welcome, and I might end up with a restraining order if I push it too hard. It’s going to have to be a public place.

The courthouse it is. I arrange a break in my day to try to catch her during a recess. I sit on the bench outside her courtroom and wait. I could go in there, but I don’t want to piss her off while she’s working. 

It only takes about 45 minutes for the court to recess from when I arrive. She is, predictability, the last person out of the courtroom. When she steps out, she sees me immediately. She just rolls her eyes and walks off. 

Her legs aren’t quite as long as mine, and I’m sure those sexy heels don’t help with speed, so I catch her in a few strides. “I need to talk to you.”

“I left you breathing. All I want to hear is gratitude and profuse apologies, then you can leave.”

“Come on, baby…”

She knots up her face and walks faster.

“I’m here about Nikolas.”

She stops on a dime, and I have to backtrack a few steps to meet her. She’s pointing an accusing finger at me, “Stay away from my nephew. You stole years of his life. I swear to God, if you do anything to…”

“Calm down.” I pull her hand down from my face and try to hold onto it. She yanks it from my grasp. “He’s in trouble. He needs my help. I’m here to ask how you’d feel about me helping him.”

“Trouble?” She’s worried. Good.

“Is there some place we can talk?”

“I’m not going to be alone with you.”

“Do you really want to talk about this in front of other people?”

She huffs. I try unsuccessfully to hide my pleasure at this little victory. 

“The courthouse has ears everywhere.”

“I have a car waiting outside.”

She reluctantly nods and stomps away in her sexy, black shoes. She doesn’t realize how much it makes her ass sway, and I’m not about to tell her otherwise.

“Mmmm.” I follow purposefully behind until we reach the doors. I step ahead to open them for her, then escort her to my waiting car.

“What’s going on with my nephew?” she snaps once we’re both seated.

I stare at her pretty, brown eyes, taking in this moment after weeks apart. They are so full of fire. So beautiful. I want to touch her.

“Lorenzo!”

“God, I love hearing you say my name.”

“Don’t.”

“Alexis…”

“I’m here for Nikolas. Tell me, now, or I’m leaving.”

“Fine.” I adjust my jacket that’s pulling on my wound. “I’m fine, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

“Shame.”

I smirk, “If you wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be breathing right now.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just waits.

“Why haven’t you told anyone who I am?”

Alexis crosses her arms and chews her bottom lip. She shrugs. “Why haven’t you said anything? What’s the point of hiding now?”

“A couple reasons. When I reveal my identity, it’s going to bring a lot of attention to my organization. To my family. I want to be fully prepared for the consequences.”

“What consequences?”

“The Moretti family has taken over Sonny’s territory here in Port Charles. They might feel threatened by my presence. And you know how they like to handle threats.”

Her eyes widen. I wonder if she’s starting to believe that the Moretti’s were the ones actually responsible for her family’s deaths. “And the other reason?”

“I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Why?” She looks away

“To see if you had any thoughts on what I should do.”

“My thoughts on your life don’t matter.”

“They’re the only ones that matter.”

She returns her gaze to me. “They shouldn’t. We’re done.”

“We’ll never be done. Your soul is mine forever, remember?”

She narrows her eyes. “You let me go. You’re not going to kidnap me again.”

I shrug. I haven’t ruled that out.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“I’m not planning on it anytime soon. I’m going to let you come back to me more naturally before I consider more drastic options.”

She hits me on the chest, right over the healing wound, and I cough and sputter in pain. “If you even consider it, I swear, you won’t survive the next time you see me.”

I can’t help my smile at her ferocity. I’m transported back to laying on my bed with her on top, a knife to my throat. Her fearlessness is a turn on.

“Now, tell me about Nikolas,” she demands.

Tension takes over me now that we’re actually getting to her brother. “It’s Valentin. He tried to have Laura Webber killed a few weeks ago.”

Her mouth drops open, “No…”

I nod. “Nikolas said Valentin tried to have her run off the road.”

“Why? To bully Nikolas into getting the estate back?”

I nod.

“Why are you involved?”

“I told you before, Nikolas came to me for help some time ago. I think it’s gotten to the point where I should intervene. How would you feel about my interference?”

She crosses her arms. “I thought you were divesting the business for Lila?”

I roll my eyes, “I’m not Tomas, Alexis. It’s MY fucking business. Why would I dismantle everything I’ve worked for in the past ten years?”

She looks at me like I’m crazy, “To keep your daughter safe?”

“My business keeps her safe. Just like my business can help keep your nephew safe...if you allow it.”

“Don’t you dare bring your business anywhere near my nephew. Your business is a poison. A disease.”

“So is your family.”

She purses her lips. She knows I’m right.

“This time it was Laura. Who’s next, baby? I won’t let it be you.”

She rolls her eyes. “It can’t be me...not with all these people you have following me around.”

“You’ve noticed.”

“Of course, I have.”

“Good. Then, they can stop hiding and keep you more secure.”

“I doubt my brother will hurt me.”

I laugh at her naivety. “He handed Nikolas over to me without question.”

“Nikolas was a threat to him. I am not.”

I grab her face in my hands and say as seriously as I can, “You’re Valentin’s greatest threat, Alexis.”

“How?”

“You have me. I’ll crush him at word from you.”

She seems surprised at my words. Her eyes flare as she considers the possibility. Then her oppressive superego crushes her baser instincts, and she says, “Don’t put this on me.”

I shrug…“If that’s your choice.”

“I need to go…”

“Alexis…” I plead.

She shakes her head. “I have to prepare for my afternoon in court. Let me out.”

What I really want to do is take her back to Mexico and lock her up in my room. Instead, I open the door and get out of the car. I’m pleased that she takes the hand I offer to help her out. She tries to walk away, but I pull her back, a hand on either side of her body, caging her between me and the car.

She’s staring down at my chest, and I can see she’s lost her breath. I bend down to catch her eyes, and say as low and dangerous as I can, “You owe me a lifetime, baby. I’m going to collect.”

Her senses come back to her, and she says, “You completely destroyed my life, and now you want to take my future, too?” 

She pushes my weak chest, and I have to back away. 

“I want to be your future, not take it.”

“Go to hell. And stay away from my family!” She storms off back toward the courthouse.

That didn’t go as well as I planned. 

I pull out my phone and call Alonso. “Alexis knows you’re watching her. Dispense with the charade and don’t let her get more than five feet away from you. Put guards on her daughter, too.”

I’m going to take care of this woman whether she likes it or not.


	10. Deal with the Devil

Alexis

____________________________

“How did this happen?” My voice is weak.

Nikolas is pacing back and forth in his living room at Wyndemere. Tears are falling from his eyes. “I couldn’t protect her. I don’t know how to protect the people I love. I thought guards would be enough!”

He drops down on the couch beside me and the sobs take over his body. I wrap an arm around my nephew and try to console his broken heart.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I failed my baby sister, Alexis. Now my mother has to lose a child all over again, and my niece and nephew have to live without their mother.”

“Did the police figure out how it happened?”

Nikolas looks up at me with tear-streaked cheeks. “Poison.”

“How? Where? When?”

He shakes his head. “No clue. It could’ve been anywhere. Anything. I can put guards on the people I love, but how do I protect against this? Any waiter at any restaurant could’ve given her one of thousands of different kinds of poisons.”

“Where’s Charlotte?”

“My mother has her for now, but you know Valentin is coming for her soon.”

“Dear God.” It’s my turn to get up and pace. It makes sense that Valentin is going after Nikolas’s Webber family. He still seems to value Cassadine blood to some degree. But how long until he gets desperate enough to come after the rest of us? “What are you going to do?”

Nikolas shrugs. “I’ve got to move forward. I’ll double the protections around Spencer and my mother. It looks like Tomas is taking good care of you and Molly.”

“And Drew is obsessively protecting Scout.”

“Good. With my family secure, I’ve got to start going on the offensive. Waiting for Valentin to make the next move has me a pathetic sitting duck.”

“What?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I sit back down. “You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I am. Valentin will always be a threat to me and the people I love.”

I shake my head, “Not if you give up the estate.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my legacy!”

“Forget your legacy! Your sister is dead.”

Tears fall freely from his eyes, “And you think I’m going to let him get away with that?”

“Nikolas, when does it end? When does it stop? When do the women and children in all our families get to live in peace, and the men put away their entitled egos?!”

“This isn’t about ego!”

Of course it is.

Nikolas dries his eyes before he turns to me. He’s gearing up to say something…

“What?” I ask.

“Did Tomas talk to you about Valentin?”

I shake my head, “Don’t. Don’t go there.”

“He won’t help me unless you tell him it’s ok.”

“I will NOT tell him to kill my brother.”

He grabs my hand. “I don’t have the resources for this, Alexis. If Tomas doesn’t help me kill your brother, then your brother is going to kill your nephew.”

I pull my hand away. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

____________________________

As I get off the launch from Spoon Island, my phone rings. It’s an international number.

I know exactly who it is…

“Hello?”

“Hello, Natasha,” says my brother. 

“You have some nerve calling me. Lulu Spencer? You killed Lulu Spencer? Your child’s mother?”

“I’m glad you see how serious I am about taking back what I’m due.”

“The only thing you’re due is a prison sentence.”

“You know, sister, I’m feeling a little betrayed. I’m the reason you found Scout last summer, if you don’t recall.”

“You kidnapped Nikolas!”

He laughs mockingly, “Yes, and you slept with the man who demanded I do it. Your righteous indignation is amusing. Look, Natasha. I’m extremely disappointed in you. I have made every effort to be family over the years, and you’ve behaved just like our father and rejected me.”

I look around the icy docks, nervous he might show his face. But the only other people around are Lorenzo’s guards.

Valentin continues, “Shall I reject you, in turn? Molly and Scout, too? Should the ones closest to you be next on my list to motivate my nephew to relinquish what’s mine?”

My spine goes cold. “You would threaten me? You’d threaten my child? My grandchild?”

“I wouldn’t call that a threat, would you? Just a consideration.” 

“Threatening the people I love has had consequences for those who’ve tried in the past, brother. If I were you, I’d be careful.”

“Here’s the deal. Your little guard dog, Tomas Delgado, I understand he’s been sniffing around for information on me. He’s no Lorenzo Alcazar. He doesn’t stand a chance against me. Call him off, or it won’t just be the Webbers and the Spencers who have to watch their backs.”

“You’re a fool for this, Valentin.”

“Good evening, Natasha.”

I look to Alonso standing next to me. He’s already typing a message into his phone, no doubt updating his boss on the most recent threats.

“Don’t bother,” I say. “Just take me to see him.”

_____________________________

Lorenzo’s house.

Not Lila’s house. Not Tomas’s house. 

It’s Lorenzo’s house.

The same house I endured that damn hurricane in all those years ago. He saved me then. He saved me again when I ran out into the blizzard last month.

I’m going to have to ask him to save me again.

Damn.

I walk up the steps and through the door Alonso has waiting open for me. He leads me into the living room. It’s a vast room, with large furniture, so similar to villa in Mexico. I feel like I’m back there...his victim once again. Hating him, needing him, wanting him, loving him all at the same time.

I’m so sick of feeling like this.

“Where is he?” I ask Alonso.

“He knows you’re here, Ms. Davis.” Alonso makes himself scarce.

I don’t want to get comfortable, so I pace back and forth, waiting for Lorenzo. My heels click loudly on the marble floors. I watch the minutes tick by on the antique grandfather clock displayed in the room. 

There’s still no sign of him, and my feet are beginning to hurt after such a long day. Getting that call from Nikolas about Lulu’s death took me right back to last year...to Sonny’s house...finding Sam...Kristina...Danny. I sit on the couch, and try not to think about their dead bodies. 

I hate waiting. It was hard enough to come here as it is, to the house of the man who betrayed me. But sitting here on this couch...a place we’ve previously made love...it’s unbearable. I stand up and start pacing again.

Where the hell is he?

“Hello, Ms. Davis,” says a sweet voice coming down the stairs.

I step quickly meet Lila Rae at the foot of the stairs. “Hi, sweetheart. Do you know where your…?” I stop. I don’t know how I should refer to the man in relation to her...Father?...Uncle?

Her face is knotted in concern when she says, “He’s in his room. He’s not great company right now.”

I suck in a breath. “I’m not really here for company. It’s rather urgent.”

She cringes. “I can’t imagine he’ll be very useful.”

I touch her arm and give her a weak smile before moving past her. I head upstairs to Lorenzo’s room. The door is closed when I arrive.

I knock firmly and wait for it to open…

Nothing.

I turn the knob and peer in. It’s dark save the pathetic light coming from the dying fire at the other end of the room. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light. Once I can see, it takes another moment to find Lorenzo.

He’s sitting in the oversized chair near the fire. His eyes are almost closed, and there’s a drink in his hand…

Oh no…

I warily walk toward him. He doesn’t turn his head to see me...I wonder if he even knows I’m here. 

“Lorenzo?”

His head turns slow and exaggerated. His eyes meet mine for a long moment before they sweep a glance over the rest of me. His face is impassive when his gaze returns back to my face.

“Alexis…” He draws out my name like he’s playing with the word. He’s obviously drunk.

“Lorenzo, I need to talk to you.”

He gestures to the couch next to him. His voice is lazy when he speaks, “Have a seat. We can talk about whatever you like...politics, religion, ethics, sports...whatever.”

“Maybe I should come back tomorrow,” I hesitate.

He shrugs. “It doesn’t really matter. You won’t want me in the morning either.”

“But you’ll be sober enough to have a serious conversation.”

He laughs without humor, “I’m not THAT drunk, Alexis. I can handle a conversation. But do whatever you want.”

I sit down and look him over more carefully. “‘Do whatever I want?’ That doesn’t sound like you, at all.” He’s usually far more insistent I stay with him. His beard is growing, and looking messy. He’s wearing a suit I don’t ever remember seeing before, but the jacket is thrown over the arm of the couch, and his shirt is wrinkled...not at all like him.

He shoots back the rest of his drink and says, “Forgive me for not being quite myself. I’m heartbroken for fuck’s sake.”

I think he might want me to feel sorry for him. I don’t. I’m annoyed. And angry. And embarrassed.

Yet, those eyes are so pale blue, and his posture is so very pathetic...it does inspire some degree of sympathy.

I push that away. I’m here on far more urgent business than Lorenzo’s self-induced broken heart...besides, he broke mine first.

“Valentin called me,” I say.

His sharp eyes come quickly into focus. I think I just dropped his blood alcohol content a few points. “What did he say?” his voice no longer lazy.

“He said you’ve been ‘sniffing around’ his business. He said I need to call you off, or he’ll come after me, and Molly, and Scout.”

“That paranoid fuck. I haven’t done anything to him.”

“I know. He just wants you to back off. He said ‘Tomas’ is ‘No Lorenzo,’ and that you’d be easy for him to deal with.”

A smile creeps across Lorenzo’s face as though he’s enjoying scenarios in which Valentin finds out his real identity. When his eyes catch mine, his smile falters. “Don’t worry, Alexis. I heard you loud and clear the last time. I’ll back off. I’ll leave your brother alone.”

I shake my head, “He killed Lulu Spencer.”

Lorenzo narrows his eyes, but stays quiet. In his inebriated state, I can tell his mind is working slower than normal, but it is working. He stands up and walks to a table in his room that has an ice bucket and bourbon.

“Don’t, please,” I ask. “Please don’t drink anymore.”

“Why not? It’s not like you’re kissing me anytime soon. That’s the only reason I stopped, remember?” He fills the glass with ice.

“Please don’t. I’m tempted to finish the bottle with you.” That’s a complete lie. I have no desire to drink right now...at least, no more desire than usual. I just don’t want him anymore impaired.

He stops. He turns to look at me when a sympathetic eye. Good. He’s not thinking about his bruised ego and man-pain for a moment. I think he’s realizing I’m scared.

He sets his glass down and comes back empty-handed. This time, he sits next to me on the couch.

“Hey, are you ok?”

I look at him like he’s crazy, “I just told you Valentin killed Lulu, and you’re asking if I’m ok? I wouldn’t be here if I was ok.”

He nods, but seems to get lost in his thoughts once again. He’s not a very focused drunk.

“Lorenzo!”

“Huh?” His eyes come back to mine. “Sorry. I was just thinking about Lulu. She survived a few run-ins with me...poor kid.”

That makes my stomach roll. I don’t ask. I don’t want to know.

“What do you want from me?” he asks, pouting like a child. “Obviously, you’re not here for the company.”

Great. We’re back to man-pain. “I can come back in the morning.”

He chuckles, “Clearly, this is a life and death situation, or you wouldn’t be here now. Just tell me. I told you, I’m not THAT fucked up.”

“Says every drunk ever.”

“Fine, wait until morning.” He moves to stand. He takes a step toward the table with his glass of ice…

“Wait,” I grab his hand, and pull him back down. Even drunk he seems in control of his body. He sits gracefully and turns back to me.

“What?”

I don’t know how to say what I need to say.

“Just spit it out, Alexis.”

“I need your help.”

“Oh?” There’s an irritating smile on his face.

“I need you to...to…” Damn, I don’t want to say it.

“To what?”

“I need you to force Valentin leave Nikolas and the rest of my family alone.”

He narrows his eyes trying to scrutinize me in that way he does, but the alcohol is blurring his second sight. “You know what that would mean, right?”

He’d have to kill him. I nod.

“And you’re sure you want this? Positive?”

I nod, glad he doesn’t make me say the words out loud.

He touches my face in the gentlest way. “If I do this for you...is there a chance for us?”

“No.” I can’t take him back. There’s no way in hell.

“Then why would i help? What’s in it for me?”

“You say you love me. Do this from the goodness of your heart...if you have one. Make me happy with no strings attached.”

His eyes are still narrowed at me, “Would killing your brother make you happy?”

“No. Do it anyway.”

He’s running his fingers gently through my hair now. “You’re asking me to be the kind of man you hate, the man you left with a knife in his chest, not the kind of man you could love. I’d be throwing away any chance at a future with you.”

“There is no chance at a future together.”

Lorenzo shakes his head. “I have no good reason to do this. There is no incentive for me to kill this man.”

“Incentive,” I look at him with disgust. “You want some sort of incentive to protect me?”

“I already am protecting you out of the kindness of my heart. Valentin can’t lay a finger on you. You’re asking for something very different than protection. No...I’d need something in return...some sort of...encouragement.”

I turn away from him. I can’t even look at him right now. “You’d use this to get back into my bed? I thought you didn’t coerce women into sex?”

He smiles, “Who said I’m asking for sex?”

“What is it you want?”

His eyes are inappropriately playful for the gravity of the situation. His finger traces down my cheek past my neck, and grazes the skin on my chest until he reaches my heart. “I want your soul.”

“You must be high.”

He’s undeterred. “I want you to come live with me again.”

“Come on, Lorenzo. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Voluntarily.”

“This is coercion.”

“You’re asking me to kill a very dangerous man for you. Usually when someone contracts a hit, there’s some sort of payment.”

I sigh in frustration and let out a groan. His answering smile tells me he knows he has me in the palm of his hand.

“And I don’t JUST want you living with me, Alexis. I want your time. I want meals together. No more avoiding me. I figure it’ll take at least a few weeks to come up with a plan and execute it, so to speak. Stay with me until he’s dead. Give me a chance to win you back.”

He’s terrible. “You’re twisted, you know that?”

He cups my face and strokes my cheek with his thumb as he says, “I want you near me all the time. I want to look at you whenever I want. I want your scent in my house. I need to know you’re close.”

“You’re insane.”

“Perhaps.”

“Any other requests?”

“I want you to stay away from other men.”

“Like I can even think about another man when you’re constantly in my line of sight.”

“Exactly the way I like it.”

I consider my options. It takes all of a moment since I have no other options. “Fine, agree to protect my family, and...take care of my brother...and I’ll live here until it’s done.” 

Lorenzo smiles with his dazzling teeth. “We’ve got ourselves a deal, baby.”

“I have some rules of my own.”

“Oh?” He raises an eyebrow, as though amused to think I have any sort of power in this game of his. “You’ve got to stop lying to me. My faith in you is completely ruined, and there is no way in hell I could ever trust you again if you keep lying to me.”

His eyes are dancing with that maniacal energy of his. I’m certain he things we have a chance.

“I’ve given you everything you’ve ever asked from me,” he says. “I can give you this.” 

“I’m asking you for the truth...no matter what it costs you.”

He grabs my hand and brings it to his lips. He places a kiss on the back of my hand, and says, “Then it’s yours.”


	11. Persephone

Lorenzo

____________________________

“Where are you going?” I ask with no little amusement.

She’s about ten steps in front of me, heading to my room. She arrived at my house with a suitcase in hand and a scowl on her face. An adorable, ferocious, little scowl. 

“I’m going to put my things away.” Her tone is an intriguing combination of resignation and sass.

“In MY room? Would you prefer to stay with me?” I gesture to the door I’m standing next to. It’s the closest guest room to the master suite. “I assumed you’d want your own quarters, though I wouldn’t deny you your pleasure. There’s plenty of space in my bed.”

She seems surprised I’m not forcing her to sleep with me. She’s obviously relieved...and maybe even disappointed. Perhaps I’m imagining that last emotion.

I open the door to the guest room in a benevolent offer of independence. She hurries through, perhaps fearful I might rescind. I roll her suitcase in and set it by the bed. She looks around the space, which is similar to mine, only a little smaller. 

I can’t read her face as well as I’d like while I’m feeling so hungover. I indulged far too much the last few days, stewing in loneliness and hopelessness. I’m almost back on my game now, feeling far more in control. 

“Are the accommodations to your liking?” 

“They always are.” She turns to me. “Where’s my metal bucket?”

I cringe, hating myself for putting her in that room. “It’s just through there.” I point to the en suite bathroom. “It flushes and everything.”

“An upgrade.” Even her sarcasm is sexy.

“Aside from a few bad decisions on my part, Mexico wasn’t so bad, was it? I recall a couple weeks of sheer heaven.”

She crosses her arms and looks out the window. She has a nice few of the grounds from this room.

“You miss the sunsets over the Pacific, don’t you?” I say.

Her eyes snap up to mine, “Is this what the next few weeks are going to be? You trying to reminisce about a time where you were lying to me with every breath you took?”

I chuckle, knowing our time together in Lázaro Cárdenas meant a lot more to her than that. “No, baby, I have more planned for you than reminiscing,” including nailing her into that mattress for hours and days at a time.

She shakes her head, “Lorenzo, you can’t possibly think playing house for a few weeks is going to change what you’ve done?”

“Of course not. Look, Alexis, for this first time in our entire relationship, we have all our cards out on the table. No secrets and no ill will.”

“Speak for yourself on that last part.”

“You love me,” I insist. “You’re angry, and you have every right to be angry, but you love me.”

“Love doesn’t change the past.”

“I’m not trying to change the past. I’m focused on our future.” I chance stepping closer to her. “I forgave you for killing my brother. I forgave Nikolas for killing Diego. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. It means understanding, accepting, moving on.”

She nearly growls, “Stealing my granddaughter from me isn’t something I can understand!”

“She’d be dead if I didn’t. Would you rather that?”

I’m catching on to her quick-striking left hand, and I see the wind-up before she hits my chest. I block her assault to my healing knife wound. Frustrated that she missed, she hits my face with her right. It stings more than I expect. She swings again, but I catch it this time. I pull her in for a bear hug, pinning her hands to stop the onslaught of her rage.

“Don’t,” she demands. “Don’t you dare try to manipulate me into thinking what you did was some noble gesture.”

“Not noble. Just not as horrible as you’ve made it out to be.” Our faces are so close, they’re almost touching. “I had to choose between getting the people I really wanted, or taking the girls instead. I chose saving their lives over taking yours and Sonny’s. Are you telling me that’s an evil you can’t forgive?”

Tears fall down her cheeks. “She’s all I have left of Sam, and she was missing for months.”

“And you still have her because of me. Right or wrong, it is what it is.”

“Whatever it is, it doesn’t mean I can forgive you. And don’t get me started on everything else you’ve done.”

I squeeze her tight and say, “And what about everything I’ve done FOR you? I’ve upended my life for you. I lied for you. I killed for you. I’d do it again and again and again...at your request, no less.”

God, I want to kiss her. Those angry lips. That agonized face. I could force my mouth on her easily enough. She’d rage at first, then she’d give in. 

But I can’t take away her choice. I step back and let her go. She wraps her arms around herself, as though she wasn’t ready for my absence.

“I need a moment alone,” she says with a shaky voice. I think she wants to cry, but doesn’t want to do it in front of me. I don’t want her crying alone. When I don’t move, she sucks in a breath, and gains back her more confident vitriol, “Is alone time not allowed in this arrangement?”

She’s so mad at me, I can almost see flames coming out of her hair. She looks every bit the tragic Greek heroine in her white chiffon blouse over her vibrant, olive skin. No, not heroine...goddess...kidnapped and chained. “Of course, Persephone. You’re the Queen of this Underworld, after all. Ask and you shall receive.”

“You’re a fitting Hades.” 

Before I take my leave, I stop at the door. “If you need anything, please let me know. I noticed you didn’t bring much with you…”

“I can go back home if I’m missing something,” she says. “It’s only thirty minutes away.”

I nod. Thirty minutes away means at least an hour of driving back and forth, and whatever time she spends in between. I see her game, “I’ll drive you, should you need to return.” 

She sneers at my interference. The only space she’s going to have away from me is her time at work, and maybe when she sleeps...maybe. “I also had your clothes shipped from the villa. They’re awaiting you in the closet.”

Her lip raises in a snarl, “How long have you been planning getting me back here?”

I smile and say, “Since before we left Mexico. Now, I’ve made reservations for dinner at eight. Please don’t change your clothes. You look lovely and I can’t wait to show you off.” I close the door as I take my leave to stop her from lashing out again.

________________________

“Wow, Alexis,” says Lila Rae. “You look beautiful. That outfit makes you look like a Grecian princess.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I say.

“Thank you, Lila,” says Alexis. I don’t get a thank you, but I appreciate her acknowledgement of my daughter.

“You know, by birth, she is truly a Grecian princess,” I tell Lila.

“My family’s aristocratic titles originate from our Russian heritage.”

“Wait...you really are a princess?” asks Lila.

“It’s only a title. There’s no throne.”

“So, Molly’s a princess, too?”

Alexis reluctantly laughs, “I guess, in a fashion.” 

Lila turns to me as I retrieve Alexis’s coat from the closet. “So where are you taking Alexis for dinner, Daddy? Somewhere worthy of a princess, I hope?”

I hold open the coat as Alexis slides her arms in. “We’re going to the Metro Court.”

“Meh. You can do better.”

Lila’s right, but so many of Alexis’s family and friends frequent the Metro Court, and I want us seen together. I want the town to know she’s mine. They don’t have to know it’s bullshit. It won’t be bullshit for long when I win her back.

Alexis looks at me with a raised brow and whispers, “Does she know who you are?”

I nod and whisper, “I couldn’t let her think her father died again.”

“Does she know about this little charade between the two of us?”

I shake my head. “She has no business in my romantic life.”

Alexis nods and considers my words. She turns to Lila and says, “You must be delighted to have your father in your life after all these years.”

Lila’s eyes widen and she looks to me. I give her a wink letting her know Alexis is finally in on the secret.

Lila smiles broadly, clearly assuming Alexis is fine with everything. “The only thing I’ve ever really wanted in my life was to know my father. Now I get that chance.”

Alexis’s eyes unfocus in a way that makes me think she’s remembering her own father...I’m not exactly comfortable with that parallel. 

“And after all these years, my dad has the chance to finally be happy. He’s getting exactly what he deserves.”

Inhibition is written all over Alexis’s face as she keeps her mouth shut about me getting what I deserve. Instead of bursting my daughter’s bubble, she gives Lila a kiss on the cheek and quietly heads to the door. 

As I give Lila a kiss goodbye, she whispers, “I’m so happy for you, Daddy.”

“I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too.”

I wish Alexis was as happy about our ‘date’ as Lila seems to be. But Alexis doesn’t want to be seen with me. When she agreed to this arrangement, she thought meals together meant hiding out in the house, much like we did in Mexico. But I have no intention of hiding our relationship.

I reserved a table in the center of the room solely for its visibility. A princess...a goddess...should be put on display. My arm is firmly around her waist as we follow the hostess to our table. 

We have four guards in the room with us, two in black suits on the perimeter for a visible presence, and two in plain clothes sitting at a strategic table by the elevator. My eyes meet theirs as I pull Alexis’s chair back for her to sit. They give the all clear.

I bend down to kiss my date before finding my seat. At first, she’s stiff as our lips connect, but I’m gently insistent. She softens. Her lips even move slightly against mine. 

Little by little...

Glossy-eyed as I pull away, she can’t pretend to be unaffected by my attentions. I sit across from her quite pleased with myself for getting to her.

“Shut up,” she snipes. 

It only makes me smile more. 

“Lorenzo…”

“Am I Lorenzo in public now?”

“I can’t very well call you ‘Tomas’ any longer.”

I don’t even try stifle my grin. “It’s not like you were any good at calling me that when it mattered.” In my head, I can almost hear her call out ‘Lorenzo!’ mid-climax.

She flushes bright red and covers her face with her hand. “I bet you just loved that.”

“You have no idea, baby.”

“How mortifying. And to think I felt so guilty...so ashamed of myself...and the whole time…”

“Your body remembered me. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You’re right. You’re the one who should be ashamed of yourself.”

I shrug. I’m not ashamed of anything but hurting this woman.

A waiter comes by to take our order, giving her a chance to compose herself. A shame, really. I like seeing the flush in her cheeks.

“So, what are you doing about my brother?” she says, when the waiter leaves with our order.

She’s trying to make this a business date. “Nothing I can talk much about in public.”

“But you are doing something?”

“Of course I am. I promised I would. We’re mostly planning, right now. Getting the right people in the right places.” Valentin is a slippery bastard, with resources and connections all over the world. The task is doable, but it won’t be easy.

Surprisingly, her eyes soften at the discussion of the murder of her brother. “Thank you, Lo.” She’s genuinely grateful.

“Of course.”

She looks around the restaurant, “This little date seems a small price to pay for what you’re doing to protect my family.”

Our family. It’s going to be our family one day. I don’t say the words aloud, but I reach across the space between us and grab her hand resting on the table. “Anything for you.”

“So you keep saying,” she almost smiles. It’s right there, just under the sadness and fear.

“It’s not always so terrible a thing to have a man like me around, Alexis.”

“Not ALWAYS so terrible…” her eyes darken, “...but sometimes it is, Lorenzo.”

And just like that, the potential smile is gone. I hate seeing the pain I put in its place. This poor girl is on a roller coaster of emotion, and because I give a fuck about her, I’m on it with her...hell, I think I might be the roller coaster itself. “I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”

She pulls her hand away, “What good are your words? They don’t mean anything.”

“Then pay attention to my actions. I’m doing everything you ask. I’m paying my penance, aren’t I?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“You think this is easy for me? You think any of this has been easy? You’ve got to find a way to forgive me, baby. I won’t live this life without you.”

Alexis sighs in frustration. She looks past me, and says, “Not now.”

“What?” I ask.

“It’s not you.” She nods behind me. “Jax is here.”

I turn to see a tall, blonde man checking his coat by the elevators. “Why does that bother you?”

She raises an eyebrow, “I don’t like lying to my friends.”

“Then don’t. Just give in and let me love you, then none of this will be a lie.”

She rolls her eyes. 

“Fine. Then grab my hand, and put on a show, princess.”

She reluctantly places her hand back in mine. I take full advantage of the moment and wrap her hand in both of mine. My fingers caress her soft skin and tickle the inside of her palm.

“A little excessive, don’t you think?” she says. “Making love to my hand in public?”

“Oh, Alexis…” I groan. My cock is instantly hard thinking about making love to her hand. It’s pressing up against my pants uncomfortably. I adjust myself as nonchalant as I can manage.

She’s blushing. She knows what she does to me. She knows how badly I want her.

She pulls her hand away when Jax arrives at our table to say hello.

“Alexis,” says Jax warmly. She stands to give him a kiss and hug. Again, it’s not one of those full bodied ones she’s prone to with me, so I do my best to keep my jealousy at bay. “How’s my favorite ex-wife?”

“Missing her favorite ex-husband.”

Alexis doesn’t introduce Jax to me, so I take the initiative. I stand and hold out a hand, “Tomas Delgado. I’ve heard all about you, Mr. Jacks.”

He gives my hand a firm shake, much like he once did when I was with Skye. “Call me Jax, please. And I’ve heard all about you, Tomas. Are you treating my dearest friend as well as she deserves?”

I look to Alexis and trace a finger down her cheek. Her eyes meet mine when I say, “That’s a loaded question. Alexis deserves far more than a mere mortal can give.”

Her eyes soften beautifully at my words...or maybe it’s my touch. I lean in and place a kiss on her temple.

“Agreed,” says Jax.

Alexis pulls her attention back to Jax. “Are you here on business or pleasure?”

“Both.” Jax smirks as his eyes move to the back of the room. A dark-haired woman is sitting alone at a table watching us with interest. She reminds me of Brenda. I try not to enjoy the idea of my brother shooting Jax over that woman. Jax and I have generally gotten along fine, even if he’s a little too physical with my woman.

“As your lawyer and friend, it would be negligent of me not to warn you about the consequences of mixing business and...uh...pleasure,” says Alexis.

Jax obviously doesn’t care to heed her advice. “She’s a businesswoman from Puerto Rico. She’s trying to get me to develop an alternate version of Crimson tailored to Latin American and Caribbean markets.”

“Jax, you know my thoughts on investing more of your money into print.”

“The least I can do is to hear her out. She did come all this way on such short notice. Flew in an hour ago.” Jax is smiling as though he’s going to be doing a lot more to the woman than listening to her. 

“Ok.” Alexis hugs him goodbye. “Call me tomorrow and reassure me you haven’t dumped more money into a failing market.”

“Yes, dear.” Jax gives her a kiss before taking off to his table.

“He puts his mouth on you too much,” I grumble. Maybe it bothers me more than I realized.

“Since you and I are not together, it’s not exactly your business where he puts his mouth.”

“I know you don’t want to fuck each other,” I say confidently. “He’s over there trying to get into that Brenda substitute’s pants, and you’re here with me.”

“Just because I’m here with you, doesn’t mean I want you.”

“But you do. Almost as bad as I want you.”

She rolls her eyes. “What I really want right now is a drink.”

I cringe. “Are you ok? Is this too much?” Am I pushing her too far?

“You’re always too much, Lorenzo.” She stands up and reaches for her purse. Is she leaving?

I rise with her, and she puts up a hand to stop me. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

I sit back in defeat as I watch her cute, little ass walk away. The more frustrated she makes me, the greater urge I have to fuck her into submission. I should follow her into that damn bathroom and fuck her against one of those floor-length mirrors. 

Jesus Christ, this woman has me obsessed. I’m as crazy about her as my goddamn brother was with Brenda. 

I turn to Jax’s table and see the new Puerto Rican Brenda stand up and start walking to the bathroom. I wonder if Alexis will give her a piece of her mind about trying to swindle Jax into investing into a Caribbean Crimson…

CARIBBEAN Crimson?

Oh Fuck…

From the Caribbean…Valentin’s been in the Caribbean…

Jax said this was a last minute meeting…

I made this reservation just this morning…

Alexis!

A jolt of my heart has me jumping out of my seat and racing to the ladies’ room. All four of my men follow behind. The door closes right in front of me. I yank it open and take in the scene.

Alexis is leaning over the sink with her lipstick in hand, full attention on the mirror only inches from her face. The dark-haired woman is coming up from behind with a knife in her hand, Alexis completely unaware…

The assassin turns and sees me coming. She hesitates a brief moment between moving toward Alexis or toward me with that blade. Her hesitation gives me the upper hand as I easily dodge her swipe, and grab her by the wrist, controlling the direction of the knife. She only fights a moment before my men restrain her, and I pry the blade from her hands.

“Who the hell are you?” I ask. “Valentin sent you?”

She doesn’t say anything. She’s pissed, but keeping contained. She’s obviously a goddamn professional...and I almost fucking let her get to Alexis…

I turn to see Alexis with her back pressed against the wall. Her eyes are wide and scared. It’s not until that moment that I realize what I’m feeling is fear, too. Adrenaline is coursing through my body, heart pounding, breath shallow, hyper-focused. 

I could’ve lost her not paying close enough attention. This skinny, little assassin isn’t much in the way of muscle, but it wouldn’t matter if she caught Alexis unaware. 

Fuck.

I wrap Alexis in my arms, careful of the blade in my hand. She buries her face in my chest, and I can feel her shaking. It takes everything I have not to stab that fucking bitch for making my woman feel this way.

“It’s ok, baby. You’re safe. We got her.” And I’m going bleed that bitch out, so she’ll never try to put a fucking hand on you again.

Alexis sucks in a breath, and says, “I don’t like knives very much.”

Her stepmother’s shadow is always lingering around. I hand the blade off to a guard to get it away from Alexis, and so I can hold her tighter. “I know, sweetheart. You’re safe, baby.”

“Jefe?” Alonso interrupts. He wants to know what to do with the woman. 

“Take her to the church for confession. We’ll give her a chance to repent.” The bitch is going to die anyway, but she doesn’t need to know that until she spills all the information we can bleed out of her.

“Scout and Molly?” says Alexis. She digs in her purse and pulls out her phone.

“I’ll check with Molly’s guards,” I say. 

I call Molly’s guards to update them and get word on her safety while Alexis talks to Drew. Both girls are safe and their protectors are alert for new threats.

“Should we call the police?” Alexis asks me.

“No. I want to get information from this woman, and that might take time. Also, when I take care of your brother, we don’t need documentation of hostilities between us. It would point the authorities right at me.”

She nods and steps back into my embrace. She’s trusting me. Trusting me even more than her precious justice system. Whatever she says to the contrary...she does know I’ll keep her safe. 

I have my two plain clothes guards escort the other woman out first to try to minimize the scene. When they’re gone, the rest of us make our way down to the car. Alexis lets me hold her the whole time. Her shaking is gone, but she’s still tense and afraid. 

I pull her in close for the ride home, kissing her head and stroking her arms. I’m not above using a situation like this to break through her defenses, but my affection isn’t entirely selfish, she really does need the comfort. I’m realizing more and more how situations like this trigger her old traumas.

“How did you know she was coming after me?” she asks.

“Nikolas and I have been tracking your brother in the Caribbean. We think he’s been buying up Sonny’s old properties, recruiting his men, filling the vacuum. Truthfully, and shamefully, the assassin being a woman threw me off. It took a moment to make the connection, but I realized I announced our presence here by making the reservation this morning. She must’ve been working Jax for a while to get him to jump at a meeting so quickly, so she had an obvious reason to be here at the same time as you. When she followed you to the bathroom, I put two and two together.”

“And you stopped her.”

“Yeah, I stopped her. She wasn’t exactly hard to fight off.”

“I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to fight her off if you didn’t come in. Who expects to be knifed in the ladies room?” She looks up at me in shock and disgust. “My brother just tried to kill me. I didn’t think he had it in him.”

“He’s desperate. He lost everything when Nikolas came back.”

“And that’s a reason to have me killed?”

“I obviously don’t think so, but he does. So, we have to be that much more diligent in keeping you safe until we eliminate him as a threat.”

She nods sadly and lays her head in the crook of my arm where I keep her secure and comfortable for the rest of the drive home. It’s a sick feeling thinking about losing the woman I love. I move my hand to cradle her neck so I can feel the blood pumping in her veins, and the air flowing to her lungs...the precious elements of life fueling this soulmate of mine.

I take her to her room when we get home. “Are you hungry?” I ask as we walk upstairs.

“Not really.”

“I’ll have something light brought up. You’ll need energy when the adrenaline wears off.”

“I’m really fine, Lorenzo. The shock is wearing off and reality is sinking in. I can deal with reality.”

“You still need to eat.” I open the door to her room and let her through. She removes her coat and drops off her purse as I send a text to my housekeeper to bring up a meal. 

“You’re just trying to get me fattened up again.”

I smile as I lean against the door frame. I do like when she has more curves. 

She walks to the bed and sits down to take off her shoes. I can’t resist the opportunity. 

“Let me, please.” I step close and kneel before her. I wait for her to nod a consent before I take her delicate foot in my hands. There’s a small strap at the ankle that I carefully release before I pull off the shoe. She stretches her toes like a ballerina when they’re free, and I can only imagine the ache in her foot walking around on her toes all day. I rub out the tension, and try to make her feel good. Her pleasured moan is a satisfying sound. I move to the other foot and do the same.

“Thank you,” she says.

“It’s nothing. I’m enjoying this more than you, I’m sure.” Her skin is so soft, so alluring. I know a few erotic pressure points she’s sensitive to, but I probably shouldn’t go there just now.

“No, I mean, thank you for...earlier. For stopping that woman.”

I look up to her dark eyes. The poor thing has another trauma to haunt her now. Just one more on the pile. I try to lighten her mood. “Like I said, being there for you is as much for me as it is for you. Saving you is selfish, really. I told you I can’t live without you.”

She gives a reluctant smile. I start rubbing up her calves, only because I can’t help myself touching her.

Her smile quickly disappears. “You know, this doesn’t change anything, Lo. We can’t just start with a clean slate because you saved my life.”

“Why not? Yeah, I did some terrible things, but you killed my brother. Let’s just call it even and move on.”

“Killing Luis wasn’t intentional. Kidnapping multiple of my family members was very intentional. Intention matters.”

“Not to me. My brother is still dead, intentional or not.”

“Exactly.”

“Fine, let’s go with intention then. You thought you were killing me when you shot Tomas. You tried to kill me. I understood that. You stabbed me in the chest. I get that, too. Forgive me mine, like I’ve forgiven you yours.”

She’s biting her lip, considering my words. I’ve got her listening. She seems like she’s hearing me for the first time…

I push her legs open and move between them. My hands run up her thighs, then up her body to hold her face. She got that pained look of confusion in her eyes. The one she gets when she’s fighting herself not to love me.

I press on, “Can’t you just do like I did, and hate yourself for wanting me, yet still give in? I hated myself until your love drowned it out.”

“I do hate myself for loving you. I ignored all my ethics to be with you in Mexico. I fell in love with you while I was lying and manipulating you. But I can’t avoid my ideals anymore. I can’t run from who I am!”

“Damn it, I’m not the evil man you’ve made me out to be! You’re pushing me away because you’re afraid you’ll be hurt again, but I’m not going to hurt you.” A tremor runs through my hands, and it makes her face shake. “Just give in, Alexis. I won’t let you go. I’m going to push and push and push forever, until I drown out all your pain. So, goddammit, just give in.”

Tears drop down her cheeks and she’s sucking in quick breaths. Her hands move to my chest, touching so gently as she says, “You feel inevitable, Lorenzo, no matter how hard I fight it. No matter what I do, or how far apart we are, you’re always there.”

“Inevitability. Destiny. Will. Call it whatever you want. We’re it for each other, sweetheart. You and me.”

A slight nod of her head is all I need, and my mouth is on her. I kiss her with everything I have. Our first kiss...our first REAL kiss. No lies. No secrets. No holding ANYTHING back.

God, it feels good! Her tongue caressing mine...her lips sucking gently...I’m lost in her. All I know is I need more. I kiss her, and kiss her, and pull her closer, keeping her tight against me. I’ll never let her go again. Never.

I can’t risk losing her again.

A knock sounds at the door, and she pulls back. Who the fuck am I going to have to kill for the interruption?

“Don’t worry about it.” I kiss her again. 

She pulls away. “What if something went wrong with...that woman? What if something happened to Molly or Scout?”

I huff a frustrated breath. “Fine...just...don’t move. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t change your mind.”

A smile curves across her delicious lips at my insecurity. I stand up, adjust my aching cock, smooth out my suit, and go answer the door.

I nearly bark in frustration at my sweet, helpful housekeeper who’s holding the tray of food I asked her to bring. I reign in my irritation, “Gracias.”

She quietly bows away, probably realizing the nature of what she’s intruding on. I bring the food in room and set it on a table. To compose myself, I take a deep breath and prepare for Alexis’s inevitable ‘coming to her senses’ and sending me away until the next time I can get her defenses down. I turn to see if she’s run off…

But she hasn’t run away. She’s slowly removing her blouse and skirt, and resting them on a chair not far from the bed. She’s calm when she turns to meet my gaze wearing nothing but her white-lace bra and underwear, highlighting the curves of her hips and breasts. 

I want to run over and rip the rest of it off, but I think she’s making a point for me. An unveiling of her body. An offering.

She reaches back, releases the clasp of her bra, and pulls it off, dropping it on the chair. I can’t help the step I take forward as her tits settle into place. I stop myself from moving further, so I don’t ruin the moment.

Next, her panties. She slips her fingers down her hips, under the lace, and lets them fall to the floor. 

She’s naked before me...her whole body...her round tits...her perfect cunt...her heart laid bare.

“You’re beautiful, Alexis. Fucking beautiful.” 

Her eyes travel up and down my body, and a smile lifts the corners of her mouth. Her dimples are asking me to take off my clothes. My patience isn’t as steady as hers. I strip down with far less care, tossing the pieces of my suit wherever they decide to land.

As I stand in front of her naked, I somehow feel vulnerable under her gaze...like she’s seeing me, really seeing me for the first time. And suddenly this feels monumental. She steps forward, drawing me in like a magnet. I close all but the smallest gap between us. 

She takes the last step into me, kissing me in the center of my chest, right over my heart that beats only for her. Her skin is softer than silk on my fingertips as I wrap my arms around her. Warm, moist licks and kisses trail down my chest and abdomen.

Fuck. She’s getting on her knees and kissing her way to my cock. 

Her eyes peer up at me through her lashes as her cheek down traces my painfully hard length. I’m somehow standing here like a fucking king, with the world’s most beautiful queen kneeling before me, and I’m humbled more than I’ve ever been in my life.

Is this forgiveness? Acceptance? Pure, untainted love?

And then her lips are at the tip of my head and I can’t think anymore. Her mouth parts, and her hot breath and slick tongue make my cock jump. 

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

She hollows her cheeks and sucks me in deep. I grunt and grip her hair, trying to find some control over myself. I’ve got to let her do this her way, but I’m losing my goddamn mind.

She pulls back, sucking the pleasure into my cock all the way to the tip. Her hands come up and grip my base, making me feel like she’s pulling more and more blood to swell my dick. I can’t get any fucking harder. She sucks me up again.

Her hands and mouth start a sensual rhythm of sucking and jerking. The soft, slick insides of her cheeks contrast with the rough edge of her teeth that sometimes scrape against my skin. 

For a moment, all the sensations alive in my body are centered on my cock, wherever her mouth and hands touch. But soon, I’m taken over by an overwhelming vibrating in my head and chest. It’s fire and ice and pleasure and pain and all the extremes of my existence. I fucking LOVE this woman from the deepest parts of my soul. I can’t handle what she does to me, yet I can’t do without it.

She’s pulling her head back and forth, and goes on for longer than I should be able to handle. But it’s when she grips my balls gently in her hand that I fucking lose it. I yank myself away, fearful of exploding in her mouth, and stopping this love-making prematurely.

I bend over and catch my breath as I watch the triumphant grin take over her eyes. She rises to her feet as I stand my full height. I’ve got her back in my arms, and I ask, “What’s your pleasure, princess?”

“Make love to me, Lorenzo, any way and every way.”

“Oh,” I growl, “then this is going to take a while.”

I kiss her again, pulling her to the bed. I lay her down and start our love-making. And when my cock is buried in her pussy, and our mouths are joined together, I finally feel secure. I’ve got her. I finally have her. 

She mine. “Your mine,” I say. All mine.

“I’m yours.”

My breath is losing it’s strength the longer we fuck, but I can’t help but say, “I love you, Alexis.”

“I know you do,” she says.”

“Tell me. I need to hear it, baby. I need to hear you say it. Make it all worth it for me. Please.”

Her eyes meet mine, and I still my body above her. She says, “I love you, too, Lorenzo. I love you.”

My heart is thumping in my chest, and my body presses tight against her. I kiss her madly. Nothing is enough. There is never enough of HER. I’ll always fucking need more. 

I fuck and I fuck, desperate to find a climax. Desperate to find some way to satisfy my need for Alexis. Yet, feeding the need only seems to fuel it more. 

She rolls her hips under mine, and she stiffens her legs. Her face is all knotted up as though she’s in pain. Her cunt is squeezing tight...trying to tip over the edge. I speed my hips to get her where she needs to go.

“Lorenzo!” she screams. 

I fuck her through her orgasm. It’s the best time to fuck. She’s so damn tight, pushing me away, pulling me in, clamping down on my dick, clamping down on my body. She loves me, and I’m completely fucking hers when she’s coming on my cock just like this.

My chest tightens, and shocks of pleasure shoot down my stomach to my cock. They burst from my dick, spilling into the woman beneath me. I want her full of me. Full of my cock...full of my cum. 

I can’t see straight in orgasm. Lights are glittering everywhere, and blurred images of a beautiful face fill my mind. “Alexis.” My Alexis.

I bury my face in her neck and just FEEL everything I can. I feel her. I feel my body. I feel that something monumental in my chest. 

I want to feel this forever. 

“I’m never letting you go. You’re mine, Alexis.”

She just smiles softly, and says, “I know.”


	12. Contrition

Alexis

____________________________

“Church? All that secrecy in getting me out of the house was to take me to church?” The building before us is a tall stone structure, with stained-glass windows and statues of a dozen saints.

“I learned my lesson about putting you on display at the Metro Court. I won’t be parading you around again until your brother is neutralized. Even then, I might keep you locked away for myself.”

I roll my eyes. I bet he’d love me locked in his house all day, just waiting for him to come home to have sex with him...like in Mexico.

“Come on,” he says. He’s holding my hand, fingers entwined.

“What are we doing here?” My heels click up the great stone steps and through the large church doors.

He chuckles, “Making an offering.”

“Are you talking about a check? Please don’t tell me we’re sacrificing a lamb.” I don’t make the obvious sacrifice of a first born joke...we’ve both already done that….

“Not a lamb...a wolf.”

Lorenzo dips his fingers in a container of holy water by the door and makes the sign of the cross. I can see more than hear his quiet prayer by the slight movement in his lips.

“Am I supposed to do that, too?” I point to the water. “Or is it disrespectful if I’m not Catholic?”

“It’s not disrespectful,” he grins, “but it might burn your sinner’s skin in purification.”

I backhand his chest. He’s fully healed now and it doesn’t faze him. His demeanor in church is light and calm, more so than it’s been in the past two weeks since my attack. He has a jovial energy about him that few people probably ever get to see. “I don’t know how this place can make you so relaxed and playful. I feel this oppressive irrational guilt weighing down. Maybe it’s the accusing glare of all the saints.”

Lorenzo laughs aloud, then whispers in my ear as he grabs my ass, “Maybe it’s just your shame over this morning’s sodomy.”

“Jesus Christ, Lorenzo. We’re in church!” 

“It’s empty. And I can only imagine God would forgive our sexual indiscretions since I converted you to Catholicism in the process. Your screams of, ‘Oh God...Jesus Christ...Holy Hell!’ when I came in your ass must’ve really got his attention.”

My cheeks are aflame as I look at the enormous crucifix above the alter.

“Mr. Alcazar.” A priest is coming out of a door to the left with his arms open, palms up.

“Monsignor Rios, good morning.” He shakes the priest’s hand as though he wasn’t just talking about anal sex in a house of God. “This is the woman I’ve spoken to you about. Alexis Davis.”

“A pleasure, Ms. Davis.” He places his hands on my shoulders and kisses the air on either side of my head. “Blessings to you.”

“Thank you.” I don’t know how to address the man, and I’m feeling extremely uncomfortable. Not to mention, Lorenzo has images of this morning’s sex fresh in my head. He’s going to pay for this. I’m withholding for at least a week. Maybe.

“Have you administered the sacraments, Monsignor?” asks Lo.

“Of course, Mr. Alcazar.”

“Gracias, Padre.”

Lorenzo turns to me. “Give me a few minutes; stay with the guards?”

I reluctantly nod and move to sit in one of the pews. Lorenzo motions for several guards to follow him, and the rest to stay with me. They’re good at giving me space, though, and spread out around the room. Lorenzo disappears behind the same door the priest just came through.

I sigh a loud, deep breath that echoes through high ceilings. Funny how I can stand in front of a judge and jury without batting an eye, but put me in a Catholic Church, and I suddenly feel like a seven year old girl being shamed by Helena for putting on the servant’s makeup, and being told I’ll grow to be a whore just like my mother.

“Why do people come here?” I ask under my breath.

“Salvation, child. And peace.”

I snap my head around wondering who has the audacity to call me a child. 

Shit. I didn’t realize the priest was still here.

He’s smiling warmly. He reminds me a little of Lorenzo with that twinkle in his eye, as though he’s up to something sinister behind the facade. 

“Do you mind if I sit with you a moment?” he asks. 

“By all means.”

The priest bows as he enters the pew and makes the sign of the cross. I feel like I’m going to need to take notes for all the times these gestures should be made. He sits next to me, not too close, thank goodness. Perhaps he knows Lorenzo’s jealous streak. I wonder if Lorenzo would give his priest a pass for cozying up to his girlfriend?

But the priest isn’t making a pass at me. He’s sighing wearily, just as I did only a moment ago. It, too, echoes around the large space.

“Are the burdens of the masses weighing on you?” I ask.

He smiles solemnly, “Indeed. And what’s weighing on you?”

I shake my head, “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I find it’s best to start with what’s inside you, child. Your regrets and your gratitudes.”

“Regrets and gratitudes? Why?”

“Regrets highlight our sins. Our wrongdoing. When people struggle with confession, I have them start with the actions they most regret. Regret helps us be better. Regret paves the path forward.”

I shift uncomfortably in my seat. I’m not just thinking about this morning’s sinful escapades with Lorenzo anymore...I’m thinking of what I did to Tomas...to Luis...to Kiefer. The glares of the saints bore down on me from all sides. “I didn’t realize I was here for Confession.”

“You don’t need to confess to me, Ms. Davis. But hiding from God is the same as hiding from yourself. You can’t.”

“Then I should probably start with my gratitudes and work my way up to the regrets.”

“Gratitudes are always a good place to start. When we get caught up in our day to day troubles, we forget what matters most to us. Gratitudes remind us of the reasons we bear the burdens we do. The ‘why’ of existence. What are you most grateful for? Why do you choose to live this life?”

“I thought you Catholics had specific ideas about why we’re here.”

“But you’re not Catholic. So, what is your ‘why’ of existence?” 

Scout and Molly pop into my head immediately. Then Lorenzo. 

I shake my head. When did Lorenzo become a ‘why’ of my existence? That doesn’t sit well with me. “Maybe I SHOULD start with the regrets.”

The priest laughs.

“What do I do with my regrets?”

“Ask forgiveness.”

“Of whom?”

“Of God.”

“And if I’m not certain God exists?” 

“Then ask forgiveness from the ones you’ve wronged.”

“I can’t.” They’re dead.

“Then ask forgiveness from yourself.”

That makes me laugh, “How do I forgive myself? How can I tell myself to let such things go?”

“Well, if you were my parishioner, I’d tell you to feel your regret along with all it’s shame and pain, pay your penance, then give it to God to bear for you.”

“How does one pay their penance?”

“In the old days, retribution would be administered in many forms...service, sacrifice, offerings...Now, we just have people pray and meditate.”

I look to the priest. “Lorenzo said he was here to make an offering. Is he paying his penance?”

“Yes...but not to God.”

“Then whom?”

The priest’s face falls, “Mr. Alcazar makes no secret of his greatest sin, Ms. Davis.”

“Oh? I’m sure he has an abundance to choose from.”

“Indeed, don’t we all? But, for Mr. Alcazar, all his sins are committed in the service of the greatest one: worshiping a false idol.” The priest looks me up and down for the first time as though wondering what it is about me that could make Lorenzo compromise his soul so thoroughly.

I laugh, “Don’t let Mr. Alcazar fool you. He was sinning far worse before I became his false idol.”

“That’s difficult to believe. Are there greater sins than murder, Ms. Davis?”

Lorenzo’s killing in my name? Has Lorenzo told the priest about what I asked him to do to my brother? Or is the priest talking about Julian? Tomas? His guard in Mexico?

Then I realize...the woman assassin. He told his men to bring her to church...to confession. Is he killing her now?

So much fucking death…

“I guess,” the priest continues, “that murdering in the name of a false idol is worse than murdering for no reason at all? Breaking two commandments at once must be worse than breaking just the one?” 

The priest laughs at his own thoughts and shrugs, “I guess I’ll have to consult the Bishop.”

“So Lorenzo is murdering in my name? Making offerings of death to pay for his sins against me?”

The priest just smiles.

“Aren’t you supposed to keep his confessions confidential?”

The priest bends down and whispers to me, “Perhaps I’m confessing my own sins to the false idol. Who do you think is aiding and abetting Mr. Alcazar?”

I suck in a breath and look to the door Lorenzo went through earlier. “And what offering is Mr. Alcazar making to atone for his sins against me?”

The priest sits back and sighs, “That is for Mr. Alcazar to confess.”

Deaths for deaths. Souls for souls. Apologies for redemption. My mind is a muddled mess of right and wrong. My once solid ethics completely dismantled. Ruined. 

“And what’s the point of all this?” I say. “Confession, contrition, penance, whatever?”

“Atonement. Reparation for wrongdoing. Washing the slate clean.”

I laugh in disgust. It’s so like Lorenzo to think killing for me is going to make up for everything he’s done. “You can’t wash your hands of a person’s blood. Believe me. I’ve tried.”

“Then think of it as a symbol, a clear message of investment in being a better person. A show of devotion beyond pretty words and painful feelings.”

I think of the bodies in our wake. “Are there any unforgivable sins?”

The priest reaches in his robes for a necklace...a rosary. He stares at the crucifix and says, “Not when there’s self-sacrifice.”

“You’re speaking of Jesus?”

The priest just smiles.

“I find it difficult to connect to some vague concept of a man sacrificing himself millennia ago for all the sins of the world. Sins I’ve even yet to commit.”

“That’s the ‘leap of faith’ we speak of so often, Ms. Davis.”

“Did Lorenzo tell you what I asked him to do for me?”

The priest smiles. Of course, he did.

“Do you think me a bad person? A sinner who’s not sure if she believes in God, and who’s asking her lover to kill her brother?”

The priest takes my hand, “I wouldn’t be a very good priest if I started casting stones, Ms. Davis.”

“Does killing my brother make up for everything he’s done to me? To the people I love?”

“You tell me.”

“No. Taking souls don’t make up for lost souls.”

“Then why are you asking him to do this?”

“To protect my daughter and granddaughter. My brother has already tried to kill me. He’ll come after them, too.”

“Is saving your family enough atonement for you? Can you forgive him his sins then?”

“Undoubtedly. Though, to be fair...I could’ve forgiven him even if my brother was never a threat.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe giving him grace for his sins might help me find the grace to forgive my own.” I shrug, “Then again, maybe I’m just forgiving him because I can’t imagine a life without him.”

The priest pats my hand indulgently, “All forgiveness comes from a place of love, child. One reason is no better than another.”

“Can I ask one more question?”

“Of course.”

“Why are you helping Lorenzo? What would make a priest aid and abet a murderer?”

The priest pulls off the rosary and looks at it once more. “Perhaps I’m not much different than Mr. Alcazar. I have my false idols, too.”

“You love someone? Who?”

He smiles, “Someone worth sacrificing my soul for, just as Mr. Alcazar does for you.”

He hands me the rosary. “Go on, Ms. Davis. Keep it. Perhaps it will bring you blessings. We’re all in need of them.”


	13. Fractured Souls

Lorenzo

____________________________

“Tomas Delgado,” says Valentin. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

I smile down at my captive, overjoyed to fulfill my promise to Alexis, and get revenge on this mother fucker for trying to kill my woman. 

The basement of the church is quite cold, and the stone floors and walls don’t retain any heat. Valentin is shivering on the floor in front of me. The cold slows people down, like molecules turning to ice. Keeping prisoners cold is a mild little torture, never quite comfortable enough to get lost in their thoughts and forget where they are. 

“How very Cassadine-like of you to think yourself so far above your opponent,” I say.

“How very unCassadine-like of me to think my sister wouldn’t have it in her to sic her little guard dog on me.”

That amuses me greatly. “You clearly don’t know your sister very well. She’s more than capable of dispatching you herself. She didn’t even blink an eye when she asked me to do it for her.”

“A poor Alcazar you turned out to be, Delgado. Falling in love with the woman who killed your brother. Doing her bidding for her.”

I laugh, “She actually killed both my brothers...quite spectacularly.” 

“Your mother would’ve been proud of who you’re taking to bed every night,” his voice drips with sarcasm. “Or maybe that’s why you’re doing this? To spite your siblings who your parents clearly preferred?”

I squat down to meet him eye-to-eye. “It amuses me what you think you know of my family...what you think you know of me. It amuses me further that you’re not trying to figure out a way to survive your current situation. Instead you’re trying to insult me. Perhaps I’ve been too accommodating since your arrival? I guess I’ve lost my touch. Your sister has certainly softened me in many respects. Perhaps I can find a way to instill the appropriate amount of fear into you for your current situation?”

He rolls his eyes in a stunning display of condescension. “You’re not going to kill me.”

“I’m not?”

“I know all about you, Delgado. You’re a righteous man at heart. You nearly went to prison for a murder Todd Manning committed because you felt bad for him. You’ve traveled all around the globe doing the CIA’s bidding in service of your country. You’re one of the ‘good guys.’ Good guys don’t torture and kill someone just because they found a lover who asks them to...in a church, no less.”

That makes me laugh deep in my belly. He really has no clue who I am. “You know, Valentin, you had a much healthier respect for me during our last interaction.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve never met before.”

“Never face to face, but we did speak on the phone. You seemed to understand the consequences of defying me much better than you do now.”

His face is confused. He’s frantically searching his memory for a time he met Tomas Delgado.

“Like I said before,” I continue, “my love for your sister has softened me in many respects, but I assure you, Valentin, trying to harm her is the quickest way to expose my vengeful nature. And the audacity of trying to have her killed while she was on a date with me is quite unforgivable. You didn’t think I’d let you get away with that, did you?”

His eyes are narrowed at me. I’m thoroughly enjoying his brain working madly to make sense of a vengeful ‘Tomas.’ 

I pull the Spyderco blade out of my inner pocket...the very knife Alexis stabbed me with little more than a month ago. I open it slowly and watch the fear creep into Valentin’s eyes. It’s an intimidating knife, more intimidating than even the gun in my waistband, and believe me, the damage it inflicts validates the fear it inspires. 

“Alexis doesn’t like knives,” I say. “When she was my prisoner in Mexico, she asked me to stop using them. Understandable, considering what she witnessed happen to her mother at so young an age.”

I lean in closer to Valentin, and hold the knife to his throat. “You know, the first thing she witnessed me do when she found me in Mexico was slice a young man’s throat from ear to ear.” 

I trace the path gently over his skin with the back of the blade. He doesn’t move. He’s scared now. 

“Then,” I continue, “she watched me stab a man in the heart and bleed him out.”

I bring the knife down to his chest and press it against his sternum. I let the point pierce his skin for impact. His breath is nice and shallow, and I can see his heart rate hammering rapidly in the veins in his neck.

“I prefer my vengeance to be taken with my own hand, and a knife is a convenient way to do that. I can decide how fast or slow I want a person to die based on how egregious their crimes are against me. And you, Mr. Cassadine, tried to kill the woman I love...the most egregious of all crimes…”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to compose himself. “You...you…” he stutters. “You’re not Delgado, are you?”

I grin broadly. My voice is soft and dangerous when I say, “No, I’m not.”

“The Reaper of Souls…”

I laugh at the silly nickname. “I actually prefer ‘El Cucuy.’ But it doesn’t translate well.”

His gaze is submissive on the floor. He knows he’s going to die now. “Does Alexis know who you are?”

“She does. And I don’t think she’ll mind me slicing you up with this blade. You threatened Molly and Scout...she’ll be fine with however I chose to dispatch you.”

He takes a shuddering breath.

“Now, Valentin, you know I like my justice, but I’m just not sure that killing you is enough to make up for what you tried to do to me…”

“No!” he says. His eyes rise to meet mine full of panic and anger. “Don’t you dare!”

“You know, don’t you? You know what would be fair? What would even the score?”

“Don’t...please, God, no…”

“You tried taking the person I love most in this world from me...I think it’s only fair to make my best effort taking the person who means most to you.”

“Don’t! No!”

A heated, vital feeling is vibrating through my bones. I feel manic at times like this...the times I feel most alive...right when I’m about to kill someone or when I’m about to fuck Alexis…

“Who is that person for you, Valentin? Charlotte? Nina? Or maybe someone else entirely? Anna Devane?”

“D...D...Don’t you...dare!”

“Or should I take all three?”

Tears are falling down his cheeks as he pleads with me, “No...no...no, no, no…”

“You didn’t think of them when you tried to kill Alexis, did you? You didn’t think you were sentencing them to death when you tried to sentence your sister.”

“I was a fool! You can’t blame them. You can’t.”

“Oh, I don’t blame them. This is about you. I blame you. This is the most satisfying way to hurt you...the way you tried to hurt me.”

“Alexis...she...she won’t be ok with that. Charlotte’s her niece.”

I sigh, “She’ll forgive me, just like she forgave me for Julian and everyone else I killed. I’m doing this in the name of love, after all.”

“No!”

“Goodbye, Valentin.”

______________________________

Monsignor Rios and Alexis are looking awfully familiar chatting together in the pew. If he were any other man, he’d get a warning from me...a very physical warning. 

Alexis looks up and smiles at my arrival. “I’m just learning about your religion,” she says.

“She’s a quick study,” says Rios. He pats her hand once more and stands. “Come see me again soon, Ms. Davis. I enjoyed our discourse very much.”

“Of course.” 

I hold out a hand to help her up. I pull her close, wrapping an arm tight around her waist. “Don’t tell me he convinced you to ditch me and join the convent?”

“Nearly, but that would mean I’d have to swear off mornings like the one we just had, and I’m not willing to sacrifice that quite yet.”

“Good. I’ll have to keep you good and satisfied so you don’t run off with my priest.”

I kiss her more chastely than usual with the Virgin Mary looking down at us from not far away.

“I have a question...” she says.

“Hmm?”

“What are we really doing here?”

I smile. “Fulfilling a promise.”

“Does this have something to do with the woman who tried to kill me?”

“No. She was...taken care of...shortly after she tried to kill you.” I don’t like killing women, so I shot her instead of gutting her, the way I just handled Valentin. “We used her information to find your brother.”

Her hands fly to my face. I love the way her fingers caress my beard. 

“Did you get him?”

I smile indulgently, as though fulfilling a birthday wish. “You, Scout, Molly, Nikolas...you’re all safe.”

“Is he here?”

I bite my cheek as I consider how to tell her what I just did, “In a manner of speaking…”

“What does that mean? Can I go see him?”

Should I take her to see his body? “Do you really want to?”

“Of course. He tried to have me killed. I’d like to confront him about that.”

“Confrontation might be a little difficult at the moment.”

“Why?”

“Um...he’s not exactly...responsive.”

Her mouth drops open. “Oh…I see...” She looks up at the crucifix above the alter. “Your offering...Valentin is the wolf.”

“Was the wolf.”

She nods.

Shit. “You’re regretting it?”

She shakes her head. “Not at all.”

“Hey…” I cup her cheek with my hand, “You ok?”

Her eyes finally meet mine. “I’m fine.”

“Do you really want to see him?”

She flinches. Her eyes move from side to side. I see the struggle there…

“Come on,” I say. “It’s done. Let’s go home. You don’t need to see that.”

I try pulling her toward the doors, but she stops me. “No...I need to see what I’ve done.”

“You didn’t do anything. I did.”

“You did it for me.”

“I did it because he deserved it. He’s lucky I don’t do the same thing to his wife.” I was mostly lying about those threats to Valentin. I have no intention of going after his family, but I wanted him to suffer all the way to the end.

“Take me to see my brother, Lorenzo.”

“You sure?” 

She nods solemnly. “I’m sure.”

I keep her in the crook of my arm as I take her through the door to staircase that leads down. She’s steady as she moves, and her heels click loudly with every step she takes. 

My men have covered Valentin’s body, and are preparing for his disposal. “Give us a minute,” I tell them. They make themselves scarce. 

Alexis walks to the bloody heap on the floor. I’m afraid she’s going to pull the cover back and see the full damage done to him. It wasn’t pretty, and I don’t want to trigger unnecessary old traumas for her, so I step in front of her and bend to pull back the cover to just reveal his untouched face. 

She’s stoic. No flinching, no panic. She just stares. 

I cover his face, probably before she’s ready for me to do so, and stand up back next to her. I turn her toward me so her eyes are forced to look at mine. “You ok?”

She visibly swallows. “I’m fine.”

I caress her cheek, “You sure? It’s ok if you’re not.”

She shrugs, “I’m responsible for Charlotte losing her father, so I can’t say I’m happy about this, but he tried to kill me. He threatened my girls. It had to be done.”

“You’re right, it was necessary.” I kiss her forehead. “Come on...let’s get out of here.”

I’m glad she doesn’t put up a fight. 

On our way back through the church, she asks, “Why did the priest help you kill my brother?”

“Aside from my generous donations to the church and community?”

She looks at me cross. “He said he was doing it for someone he loved.”

“You had quite the conversation, didn’t you?” I laugh. “I helped someone important to him out of a bad situation.”

She raises an eyebrow.

“His son,” I whisper.

“Oh?”

“Only you, me, and God know about that.”

“Wow. Why did you help him? Was it an act of contrition for your sins?”

I laugh, “I don’t know. Maybe. Were you and Rios confessing all your sins to each other while I left you alone?”

“Something like that. Do you believe in the power of Confession?”

“I believe in justice...but you knew that.”

“And do you think justice was served here today?”

I shrug, “It was good enough for me. How about you?”

She shakes her head, “This wasn’t about justice for me. This was about protecting my family. I haven’t gotten real justice...not yet.” Her voice has gone cold and chilling.

“What do you mean?”

She pulls me to a stop just outside the church. Her eyes are narrowed fiercely. “You promise you didn’t have anything to do with the deaths of my girls and Danny?”

“Alexis, I promise. I swear on Lila’s life I had nothing to do with that massacre.” I hope she believes me. It’s the God’s honest truth.

She nods. I’m pretty certain she believes me. I draw my own conclusions about where she’s going with this. “You want retribution for their murders?”

“I want justice for them.”

I touch her cheek softly, “What kind of justice? The official kind...or my kind?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Ok. When you decide, I’ll help you. Whatever you need, ok?”

She nods. Her over the top stoicism has me concerned. I pull her in tight for a hug, and I kiss her temple to try to ease her tension. “Tell me what’s wrong, Alexis. What can I do to make you feel better?”

She pulls back to look at me, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

Tears are finally welling in her eyes, “Do you think my soul is ruined? The things I’ve done...The things I’ve asked you to do for me...”

“No, baby. No, I don’t think your soul is ruined. I think it’s perfect just the way it is. Mine on the other hand...”

She laughs out loud, “Yeah, yours is a little worse for the wear…”

“But you love me, so I don’t care.”

She nods, “I do, you know. I love you...ruined soul and all.”

“I know. You choose me anyway?”

She nods. “I do.”

A rush of emotion overwhelms me. I kiss her hard, because if I don’t, I think I might get tearful. No one’s ever chosen me before...just the way I am...all my secrets laid out on the table. Of all people to do so, I can’t believe it’s Alexis Davis. The last person in the world who probably should.

Our ride home is quiet. There’s not really all that much to be said after you kill your girlfriend’s brother. The shitty thing about action movies and spy novels is how the main characters who live through the most tragic of circumstances are always depicted so joyfully in the end. 

And don’t get me wrong, I won. I got the girl. I have my daughter, my woman, my home, and my business. But I just gutted a man with my bare hands, and for some reason, I’m not feeling all that delighted about it. Maybe I’m even feeling a little guilt. Maybe Alexis is rubbing off on me. 

Maybe my soul isn’t as ruined as I thought.

I brush off the idea quickly and focus on getting Alexis home. I’m more worried about how she feels than how I’m doing.

“So,” she asks as we’re coming through the door to my house, “when is Lorenzo Alcazar coming out to the world? I’m obviously not very fond of this little facade we’ve been putting on.”

“I guess that depends on you. If you want me to do anything about the Moretti’s, I shouldn’t draw attention to myself until that’s over.”

A voice sounds from further in my home, “So, it’s true? You’re Lorenzo Alcazar?”

Alexis sucks in a breath as we turn to look at the scene in the living room. “Téa…” she says.

I assess the situation. My eyes immediately fall on my daughter, who’s sitting on the couch in the living room with a gun trained on her. Todd fucking Manning is about to be a dead man. My daughter’s guards are seated on the floor near the fireplace with their arms pathetically tied behind their backs with what looks to be zip ties. 

We left two of our guards at the church to dispose of Valentin’s body. The other two guards are outside putting away the car and checking the perimeter. Fuck.

“Lila Rae was insistent that you were her uncle,” says Téa. “Is she in the dark, too?”

“She has no clue this is her father,” says Alexis. “Leave her alone. Let her go. You have me here to keep Lorenzo compliant.”

Téa’s hands are shaking, and when I look in her eyes I can tell it’s from rage. “Lorenzo Alcazar?”

I nod my head in confirmation. If they’re here with a gun trained on my daughter and her guards tied up on the floor, they obviously know who the fuck I am. “How did you find out?”

Manning pulls a pen out of his pocket. It looks very familiar. “I took a few things from your desk the last time we were here.”

Asshole. 

“I had your prints run through the Llanview PD, and they came back as Tomas’s, but after awhile, the results just didn’t sit right with me. Tomas Delgado was always an ass, but never an asshole, so I had them run again by a friend outside the department.”

“You killed my brother!” Téa yells at me. “You kidnapped him and held him prisoner for years, then you killed him and his son!”

“No!” says Alexis. “I killed Tomas. I’m the one who shot him.”

“No one’s going to believe that, mob wench,” says Todd, “not when you’ve been running from state to state trying to figure out if you were fucking Delgado or Alcazar. I guess it didn’t really matter in the end. You just wanted to get dicked down by whatever blue-eyed Latin man would have you.”

I nearly pull out the gun in my waistband and shoot the bastard on the spot for speaking to her that way. It takes all my self-control not to move for risk of him shooting Lila Rae first. But Todd Manning will take his last breath soon.

“We need to search him,” says Todd. “I’m sure he’s armed.”

Todd trains the gun on Alexis as he moves toward me, I’m guessing to pat me down. As he passes Lila on the couch, I can see her hand reaching in her pocket…

Oh shit...Manning must not have search her...

Lila jumps up, blade opening from her pocket like I showed her, and slashes down on Manning’s back. A gunshot rings out as Manning yells out in pain. The shot goes wild, thank God. I pull the gun from my waist band, and release half a clip in that asshole’s head and chest.

Téa screams out, and I lift my gun to her. 

“Stop right there,” I tell her. I should shoot her. She helped Manning get into my house and put a gun on my daughter...I should fucking kill her.

Téa doesn’t listen. She runs to Todd and throws herself on him. She’s checking for a pulse, calling his name, and trying to stop the blood from flowing out of his body. Lila, smart girl that she is, grabs Manning’s gun and trains it on him, just in case he gets up.

I raise my gun once more, and consider my options...

“Don’t!” says Alexis. “Don’t hurt her.”

“Alexis...they put a gun on my daughter.” I’m holding the gun way too tight in my hand. I’m so close to squeezing the trigger.

Alexis steps between me and Téa. “She’s not a danger.”

“This isn’t about danger. This is about justice!”

“Lorenzo, I can defend you and Lila killing Todd. I can’t defend you hurting Téa.”

“She doesn’t deserve to live.”

Her eyes soften, and she looks from my face to the gun, then back to my eyes. “Put it away, Lo. For me.”

I glance at Téa one last time. She has her phone out and is calling an ambulance for a dead man. She threatened someone I love...and I killed the man she loves. I’m responsible for Tomas’s death, too. I suppose that’s even enough for me. I really don’t like killing women.

I put the gun away to Alexis’s obvious relief. We release Lila’s guards from their restraints, and I take the gun from Lila, proud of my little girl for using the lessons I taught her to protect her own.

Alexis comes to me and Lila and wraps her arms around us both.

“Are you ok?” I ask my girls. 

“I’m good, Daddy,” says Lila.

Alexis looks up at me and nods. “Thank you,” she says.

“For what?”

“For listening. For everything.”

And I know what she means. She’s grateful I’ve made her more important than my vengeance. I squeeze the two women in my arms. Nothing in the world is more important than them...nothing...not even revenge...


	14. Epilogue

Lorenzo

____________________________

I had Alexis in my arms the moment she walked through the door in that sexy, blue dress. The dress didn’t survive the trip upstairs. 

I love seeing her clothes littering the floor.

I fucked her fast and impatient, needy for her after a long couple of days apart. I had to fly back and forth to Puerto Rico to handle some business. I’ve been filling Valentin and Sonny’s vacuum in the region and it’s taking too much time away. 

So, as Alexis lies here in my arms, catching her breath, I finally have a chance to ask, “How was the trial?”

“Like I messaged you earlier, Téa was convicted of breaking and entering, and false imprisonment, so I guess that’s a success.”

I scoff, “The deal she made with Robert Scorpio gave her a pathetic amount of time in county jail, a couple hundred community service hours, and probation. I’d hardly call that justice.”

“She’s also grieving the losses of her brother and her lover. She didn’t get out of this situation unscathed.”

She deserves worse. “You know she’s not going to let this go, right? Téa, Blair, Manning’s kids...they’re going to come after me. And I won’t let them get away with using you or Lila to do so again.”

“We’ll deal with that when it gets here,” she says. “I’m just so damn tired of games of vengeance and deceit and manipulation right now. I’m tired of bloodshed.”

My hand traces up and down her bare back. “Does that mean you’re letting go of ideas of vengeance and justice with the Moretti’s?”

She’s quiet as she considers. After a deep breath, she says, “For now.”

I look down in her eyes, “Are you sure? They took your daughters from you. They took your grandson. You can just let that go?”

There’s no way in hell I ever could.

Her arms wrap tighter around me, and says, “Todd and Téa came for vengeance, and one of them is dead. You came to Port Charles to avenge your brother, and you lost a niece and a son. You nearly lost your own life. Julian’s gone. Tomas is gone. Sam, Kristina, Danny, Valentin, and Lulu are all gone…I guess I’m just not ready to risk anyone else...not right now.”

“You keep adding those qualifiers of ‘not yet’ or ‘not right now.’ That means you haven’t ruled it out completely.”

She sighs, “I am a Cassadine, after all. I can hold a grudge with the worst of them.”

I can’t help the curve of my lips, “Yes, you are a Cassadine. My princess, in fact. And if and when you decide to get your vengeance, I’ll gladly lead the charge.”

She kisses me soft and deep. Only a Cassadine would find offers of revenge romantic enough to inspire a kiss like that. 

As we curl up together to fall asleep, she starts tracing the new tattoo that covers my forearm. It’s a piece inspired by traditional Venezuelan art depicting love and war. I was drawn to the duality of the piece like I was drawn to the duality of HER. Perhaps because I can see myself reflected in that idea, too.

I squeeze her tight and kiss her head as I begin to drift off, finding contentment in the woman in my arms, contentment in my daughter, my home, and the idea of life in general. I finally have it all, and God help the poor soul if someone should try to take it from me.


End file.
